This is not the typical memoir; it's very detailed, almost like a textbook. This guy is really smart, but sometimes I missed how much his disorder affected him emotionally. ( )

This is not the typical memoir; it's very detailed, almost like a textbook. This guy is really smart, but sometimes I missed how much his disorder affected him emotionally. ( )

Shawn’s examination of his agoraphobia and his family life as a possible “trigger” for his phobia reads like a rather strange blending of introspective analysis, family memories and a textbook spanning the scientific fields of neurosciences, evolution and psychotherapy. Shawn’s personal research journey is far reaching in both scope and time. I found it interesting to learn about the phobias of Emily Dickinson and Hans Christian Anderson, and found Shawn’s account of his twin sister Mary to be a very sad one. Whether Shawn’s phobia can be attributed, even partially, as being inherited from his high-strung father and overprotective mother is used to help connect the memoir side of this book with the science side. While Shawn attempts to come across as candid, his writing is restrained, almost rigid. In Shawn’s own words:

” In writing the book I came to the conclusion that the shame I originally felt at the prospect of writing it was a fear worth conquering. My hunch is that beneath the surface of even the most smoothly functioning lives (and families) there are always fissures – psychological crises, deficits, conflicts. By putting my own worst foot forward, as it were, I mean to challenge our assumptions about what a normal person is.”

Overall, an interesting read if you are interesting in reading about a personal struggle to understand and overcome agoraphobia.

Notable Quote:
"However full of inner resources we may be and however many outer connections we may have, we as individuals are still absolutely, irrevocably singular. Our brief life span is bounded on all sides by nothingness. The living earth moves through the infinite dark."

( )

Allen Shawn writes about being phobic. How his phobias shape his life, how he's tried to overcome them, and how knowing how his childhood environment shaped them doesn't relieve the tension.

Trying to explain how being phobic feels must be like trying to explain what a banana tastes like to someone who has never had the experience. While Wish I Could be There is an explanation, in layman's terms, of the research he's done on phobias, it is also filled with anecdotes of Shawn's experiences. And, it's the story of his family's secrets (Dad had two families) and his twin sister's autism and institutionalization at age 8, among other traumas. Told with care and curiosity, Allen Shawn explains his life as conductor, teacher and composer, all the while coping with his debilitating phobias.

Although somewhat academic in places, I liked reading about Shawn and his life. The parts about his twin are almost heart-breaking. ( )

Personal and scientific view of agarophobia and other phobias. Could add to content of the Center Cannot Hold.