Augusta, Gone: A True Story

By Martha Tod Dudman

Book Overview

As a single parent Martha was sure she was giving her two children the perfect life. When daughter Augusta turned 15 things started to happen; first the cigarette, then the blue pipe and the little bag Augusta says are aspirin. Martha can't seem to get through to Augusta, and Augusta it appears is intent of doing everything to hurt herself. Martha doesn't know if she's confronting teenage adolescence, craziness, her own failure as a parent, or all three.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743204093
• ISBN13: 9780743204095
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Courage

There's an old country music song (I forget which one) where a seasoned singer tells the wannabe singer that writing and singing songs is easy, that, "son, all you have to do is make folks feel the way you do."Anyone who's ever bothered to attempt to tell a story in song or on the page knows how difficult this communication can be, but Martha Tod Dudman makes her readers truly understand the pain and love and confusing paradox that comes with raising a child who is in dire emotional straits.Dudman shows her readers the other side of the mirror of books like Girl, Interrupted--the pain and profound frustration of watching your daughter vanish. Of watching her harm herself. And of trying anything and everything to save her.Martha Tod Dudman is unflinching in her honesty and Augusta, Gone is told in a prose that is flinty and hard-won. It is a book that should be on the shelves of parents and psychiatrists (along with Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia) and anyone who has a child or loves children.Augusta, Gone is a wonderful and rare book full of love and grit and great integrity.

Good Writing, Good Parenting

As a mother of a teenager, I am amazed that anyone can judge another person's ability to parent! In the courageous tale of her journey into teenage hell, Martha bares her innermost soul. She shares with us a look into the heart of a mother who suspects she has somehow failed her daughter and will do anything to get her precious child back. But how does one do that? I defy anyone to answer this question in a definitive way. She makes no apologies for her behavior or the behavior of her daughter - it is what it is. And therein lies the exquisite beauty of this book. What parent of a teenager hasn't felt the dumbfounded fury at the secretive/suspicious/quarrelsome/flippant attitude of their 12 - 15 year old child? Martha manages to put into words that which defies description. All the feelings of frustration, anger, insecurity, self-blame, helplessness the average parent feels when trying to deal with this difficult time of life. This book was not meant to be an example of parenthood, but simply one woman's experience. In so doing, she manages to convey the spectrum of the experience, including and most importantly, hope.I truly loved this book. I loved it for its honesty, for its emotion, for its message that those of us who are experiencing a teenager's angst and confusion are not alone. I loved it for its tremendous courage. I'm not sure I would have had the guts to send my child away as Martha did. But I'm convinced that had she not, the ending would have been different. Martha Tod Dudman was not a bad parent. She was (and is) a human parent. Aren't we all?

Notes from the garbage disposal

I am a Mother of a teenage girl in a Therpeutic Boarding School. I got this book yesterday and read it in one sitting. Martha Tod Dunham toook all the pain I felt, all the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, the feelings of being a failure as a parent, the fear I felt for my daughter, plucked them out of the chaos and put them all into coherent sentences. I want to go and demand that family and friends read it so they will understand. I want to shout to everyone I know, "This!!, This is what it's like." She does an incredible job of describing what life is like when your child has lost her way and you as a parent are at a loss as to how to help her find her way home. From a parent who has had her hand in the garbage disposal.... "This!!, This is what it's like."

An extraordinary tale of ordinary despair?and hope

Augusta, Gone is must reading for anyone who has ever been or plans to be a parent. More mothers and fathers than will probably admit it have experienced the anxiety and despair that Martha Dudman describes in this harrowing account, as her teenage daughter Augusta-angry, rebellious, perhaps even suicidal-slips away from her day by day. Augusta curses her mother, fights her, screams, shouts, does drugs, smokes, drinks, runs away. The author is in despair, doesn't know where to turn. She alternates between fighting to regain her child's love and looking for a safe place where she will be cared for-and far away. Her pain is made all the deeper by her awareness-and her rebellious daughter's-that she has been there herself. Each step deeper into the morass of alienation and despair is painfully told, and it is hard to imagine how either Augusta or her mother will ever return to a sane, sharing relationship. This book has particular relevance today, as the news headlines are filled with stories of angry young people losing control. Augusta never takes up a gun, but she is not so different from the teenagers in Colorado, California and Pennsylvania whose anger has led them to terrible acts.The book is not an easy read; the journey through it is wrenching, even exhausting, but it is beautifully written, and we are left at the end with hope-and what more can a parent ask? Martha Dudman set aside a promising career in radio before she took up her pen to write this book. It was where she should have been all along. She is a gifted writer: her prose is exquisite, her imagery dead on, her use of language flawless.

Augusta, Gone

I don't usually read memoirs, but I recently decided to take in a few written by the locals, specifically Stephen King's On Writing, as well as Martha Dudman's Augusta, Gone. I can only conclude that there is something about the air up here in Maine that promotes excellent writing. I expected something special from Mr. King and he delivered. (Thank you Mr. King. You're terrific!) However, I have to tell you, Dudman's book takes the crown. Augusta, Gone is a riveting book about the stamina of true love. In the book, Dudman is physically and spiritually revived by her daily walks, but she runs an endless marathon to save her daughter. As the Publisher's Weekly review attests, Dudman's book will be "welcomed by, parents unnerved by the current media focus on risky teen behavior." Read it with interest if this compelling and all too timely topic interests you. However, if you simply love good writing, run, don't walk to your nearest bookstore (or computer terminal) and order this book! For those who like to read to escape, this is not a depressing book. It is a sit on the edge of your seat thriller. Moreover, Dudman uses compelling imagery throughout that had me thinking I was sitting in her skin. I kept waiting for the point when I would lose my wind, when I would begin to say "Yeah, yeah, yeah." but it never happened. How did she keep the pacing of the book so brisk and yet sustainable? Was it all that practice walking? She is brilliant, but she is touchable, embracable. She is one of us. I will watch the trajectory of this book with interest. Oprah, please tune in. It is time for a memoir.