On The Ledge: A Memoir By Amy Turner

An emotional memoir that asks the question, “what do we really know about ourselves?” ‘On the Ledge,’ by Amy Turner is nothing short of masterful. As a memoir lover, I could tell immediately I would enjoy this book and was pulled in from the very first page.
The memoir begins where, I think, Turner’s true contemplation began: the fateful day that she accidentally stepped out in front of a truck. Turner had only left home to pick up her dry cleaning when she was hit by a truck. Although she spent what must have seemed like an impossible amount of time lying still, unable to move or think properly on the pavement, Turner ended up only suffering from a concussion and was sent home from the hospital that very same day.
Though this initially seemed like a blessing, the time spent recovering became something of a burden to her. As we all know, time spent still often leaves too much time to think, and this time lead to Turner revisiting the trauma of her childhood and the difficulties that her parents put her through.
Turner whisks the reader back in time to her father’s attempted suicide in 1957 and the ripple effect that this moment created for the rest of her childhood and life. Between having a mentally ill father and a former alcoholic mother, Turner’s childhood was not the idyllic 1960’s image that most of us picture. But through coping with her injuries and writing this book, Turner seems to have come to some deeper realizations about her life that only time can provide.
I was very touched by the compassionate and understanding way that she now views her parents and her siblings. I feel as though I learned a lot from this book about how to view my own family and how to better view my own mental health.

This book caught my attention right from the start and gave me all kinds of emotions. It’s a very personal look at the authors life from a very young age when her father attempted suicide. I can’t imagine my family and I having to go through that, especially going through it at the age of four. The incident also puts her family on an emotional journey. Years later the author had her own brush with death when she was hit by a truck. As she goes thru a few different types of therapies, she starts to heal.

This book is very sad at times and at other times it is funny. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the book. I loved the writing style of the author and the flow. It was like sitting next to someone and listening to them talk. I didn’t want to put the book down until I read the last word.

On the Ledge is the true story of a woman who, much like most of us, grew up with a story in her head that became her reality. All that was questioned when she had an accident, literally being ran over by a truck. This accident brought up emotions that had been part of her very being her entire life, and allowed her to move forward and question her beliefs of who and why she was the way she was. The journey enlightened her, and freed her to become a more authentic self.

This trauma uprooted a deep oppressive value system that was instilled at an early age by family values–living with an emotionally, mentally fragile father, and a keep the peace at all costs mother, who dealt with life in her own stunted way. Read the book, and feel your own awakening as you look back and reframe your own experiences, and realize that the truths we base our lives upon can be limiting. Amy Turner’s story showed me similarities in my own upbringing, and the need to question my beliefs in order to block and unlock those that were holding me back from being my own authentic self.

This memoir is well written, entertaining with humor and educating with ways to transcend life experiences. She shines a light that many of us need to shine upon our own lives.

On the Ledge is a very well selected title for this memoir. I grew up in the same hometown as the author and enjoyed seeing people I know in the book. Very well written and meaningful to anyone who lives with the perils of being alive and how our memories of childhood survive deep within us and come back to tell their stories over and over. I highly recommend this book!