Bigger Than Life: A Murder, a Memoir

by Dinah Lenney

Book Overview

Nelson Gross led an outsized life--one in which he played many roles: father, brother, husband, politician, entrepreneur. When he was killed by a couple of teenagers in a botched abduction and robbery, the murder shook his family in predictable and terrible ways. For his daughter, Dinah Lenney, the parent of her own young children, the loss sparked a self-reckoning that led to this book, which is both a meditation on grief and a coming of age story...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803229763
• ISBN13: 9780803229761
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A unique and moving piece of literature.

This is a very deep and beautiful read. By the end of the book, I felt I personally knew the characters in her life. I especially loved Lenney's devotion to her children and her quest to make sense of the tragedy so she might offer them hope. There's some really beautiful scenes in the book and it's worth checking out.

More than a memoir

I so admire those who can write about the most (potentially) sentimental thoughts or ironies without a trace of melodrama. Families sustain and drain us: Lenney infuses her reportage with such personal detail, showing (not telling) how we hurt and love each other, fathers and sons and mothers and daughters -- and strangers. Lenney shows also how so many aspects of life are completely out of our control, not fair or explicable, yet we find grace in small exchanges, in memories and talismans and trying every day. The murder, although central to the story, is not the whole story because it is Dinah and who she is, where she is and how she got there. I enjoyed spending the time with her, an author frank and compelling as she tells her story.

WONDERFUL CHARACTER STUDY

This book is woven with rich characters who jump off the page. Lenney gives you some insight into her remarkable curious and ever questioning mind about life, relationships, and her world and the people in it. A terrific study of human nature with a keen eye towards the minute detail that defines us all, within the structure of this ever inquiring memoir lies a murder story that had an impact upon a womans life and a generation that follows. If you never read a memoir (any memoir for that matter) this is one that you must add to your library. If you read it over and over again you will find new nuances of character in its simplicity and you might even at the end begin to look at a portion of your life as a memoir. There is one in all of us!

Fathers and daughters; the quest for connection

I'm not a fan of memoirs, but I happened to be in a bookstore when Dinah Lenney read a chapter of "Bigger Than Life"--was immediately hooked, purchased a copy--and was very glad I did. The book fulfilled all the promise of that chapter. Nelson Gross is a fascinating character. A child of divorce, Lenney captures the quest for her father's love with humor and unending self-awareness. His tragic murder, just as their adult relationship is evolving, is bitterly ironic--but Lenney's insight brings the relationship full circle and reassures us that connections are made, ties do bind. Read it in a single afternoon--and it's still with me.

Brave, comic, moving, whipsmart

The botched robbery and murder of the writer's father propels her into intelligent, compassionate, funny, unsparing examinations of family entanglements, her own role as mother, class issues, narcissism, inheritance, suffering, what we withhold from each other and what it is possible to reveal. The prose is penetrating, great hearted, and deals with grief, but the narrator is not sensationalistic, ever, and does not suffer fools gladly. There is no self pity or maudlin weepiness here. Full of deep feeling the prose is lively and energized. A wake up call to mind and heart, this book deals with tragedy yet is not tragic in tone, but packed with pleasure and pain. The writing is graceful and super lucid, relentlessly questioning what it means to be mortal and human.