The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever

by Alison Johnson

Book Overview

Paperback. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0967561922
• ISBN13: 9780967561929
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Cumberland Press
• Length: 191 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Incredible True Story of Hoarding Gold and Silver

Hoarding has come out of the closet and into the mainstream pop culture with the hit A & E show Hoarders and books such as Stuff (nonfiction) and Dirty Little Secrets (YA fiction). Joining this hoarding genre is The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever by Alison Johnson. In this sad memoir Johnson shares her family's unique hoarding story: two tons of silver and gold! While many hoarders keep items that are of little value to anyone apart from the hoarder, Johnson's father kept silver and gold coins. Dean Krotter, Johnson's father, the son of a wealthy businessman, believed that another Great Depression was just around the corner. He also had hoarding tendencies (e.g. he once bought thirty boxes of Cross and Blackwell orange marmalade because he feared that it would be discontinued). To prepare for the impending doomsday Krotter hoarded as much silver and gold as he could acquire. Which with his wealth added up to two tons worth. Additionally, given his paranoia, Krotter did not trust his fortune to a bank vault, so he stashed his coins randomly around in the family houses, shed and back yard. Unfortunately, when the inevitable occurred -- when Krotter became feeble due to a stroke -- Johnson and her sister were left to hunt for the literally buried treasure. Further adding to the chaos was the dysfunctional family dynamics between Johnson and her siblings along with her mother's mental illness. Johnson's family saga is a tragic, but fascinating one. Her vivid descriptions of searching for the coins are astonishing. At one point Johnson confesses: "[E]ver since I was a child I have had recurring dreams that I am digging in the earth and discover coins. I suspect this is a fairly common dream, although Wells [the author's husband] never has such dreams and says it's in the genes. When we first found the buried coins that day, we were elated. Then as we transferred handful after handful of buried coins, becoming dirtier and dirtier with the brown dust from the earth and the black dust of the silver, an odd feeling of revulsion set in, and we started to feel bored and exhausted with whole operation. In fact, it soon became a joke among Wells, Diane [Johnson's sister] and me that one of us would go off looking somewhere and come back saying, 'Bad news, I found more coins!" Amazing! To paraphrase Tolstoy, Johnson's family dysfunction is unlike any this reader has ever read. If you enjoy outlandish, but true stories then The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever is a must read memoir! Publisher: Cumberland Press (2008), 191 pages. Review copy provided courtesy of the publicist.

Author displays a impressive analytic intelligence that makes this work provocative, although noneth

Author: Alison Johnson Publisher: Cumberland Press ISBN: 13: 978-0-9675619-2-9: 10:0-9675619-2-2 If you are into watching and listening to some of the horrific family sagas presented on such television shows as Dr. Phil or Oprah, then Alison Johnson's The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever will appeal to you. What we have here is a detailed family memoir where the author unlocks the dreaded skeletons in her family closet. There is an eccentric father, who was a miser and hoarder of gold, silver, books, as well as other items. Johnson's mother was mentally ill, who prior to her illness, enjoyed life but had been stunted by an unhappy marriage. In fact, as the author states, the uneasiness of her parents' relationship and her father's unusual character traits contributed to producing three children who were not happy or well adjusted. There were also two brothers, one who was an alcoholic and the other estranged from his family, and a sister, who mismanaged her father's assets, even turning to the stars for answers to the frustrations of her life. The author appears to be the only sane one of the family, who for the most part seemed to have a happy life. The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever reads more like a work of fiction, however, as mentioned in the introduction, the story is true, nothing has been added or embellished, except some names have been changed of a few people not central to the main action and the first names of the author's daughters to afford them a degree of privacy. Johnson informs us that she wrote the family memoir in 1984-85 but delayed its publication until both her brothers died. The saga unfolds in Palisade, Nebraska, a tiny enclave, in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Denver and Lincoln, where Johnson was born and, and as she informs us, had a population of 799. Her father was a successful businessman, however, he was obsessed with gathering silver and gold coins and hiding them in kitchen cupboards, attics, bottom of dresser drawers, and in holes in the ground. He was convinced that the total collapse of the American economy and government was just around the corner. Perhaps, if this happened within the past few years with the meltdown of the financial institutions, we might have taken a different view of his eccentricity and economic theories. Nonetheless, it was due to this obsession that had an enormous influence on his family leading to unfortunate repercussions and a family shipwreck, where nothing was resolved happily. Many will no doubt question why anyone would want to air their family's dirty linen in public? To this, Johnson replies that she had suffered emotional violence at the hands of her siblings, as she was a kind of punching bag for too long and it was time she punched back, particularly that it went as far as her family believing that she was mentally ill. Perhaps, the writing of this book was in fact a cathartic exercise to finally release and cleanse herself of all of the garbage that was in

This memoir of money, madness, and the destruction of a family was utterly mesmerizing!

The prairies of Nebraska were dotted with small towns, town in which everyone knew one another. There were few secrets, but one day an astonishing secret would come to light that would not only raise eyebrows, but ultimately destroy a family. The Kotter family didn't appear to be unlike most families in Palisade, Nebraska, but Fred and Nellie's eldest son, Dean appeared to have some quirks that would become more exaggerated the older he grew. When he was a young man, he decided to court beautiful Audrey Musick, an intelligent woman who had come to the town to teach. The match appeared to be made in heaven, yet Audrey's family quickly began to have reservations. He asked a former girlfriend to pick out their wedding china and his social skills appeared to evaporate. Dean's nose was better suited in between the pages of a magazine rather than focused on the needs of his family. Audrey was shocked when she awoke from the anesthesia after giving birth to her firstborn son, Kent to find he wasn't even in the hospital. With the birth of three more children, Diane, Alison, and Mark, she would soon find herself trapped in a loveless marriage in a God forsaken podunk town in the middle of nowhere. Dean began to exhibit the insidious traits of a hoarder and began to accumulate gold and silver coins as he believed "that another depression was right around the corner." (p. 13) A Financial Armageddon would soon be upon them and Dean Kotter, whose love for his family had no bounds, had to save them. Grandmother Kotter "helped nurture the philosophy" with self-sacrifice so her sons could have more. Dean would follow suit, yet his obsession would ultimately prove destructive. He began to save, to hoard and nothing could stop him. No amount of persuasion would convince him to buy a larger home to house his growing family. Alison, desirous of a bit more privacy, set up her bed next to the coal furnace in the basement. His miserliness was boundless and, as Alison later claimed, " . . . all the while that Dad was collecting some 200,000 silver nickels, he would still make Mom walk five blocks just to save putting a nickel in a parking meter when they visited Lincoln or Denver." (p. 27) The seeds of madness had been sown. As adults Kent and Mark "shared many of his [Dean's] habits and personality and character traits." (p. 73) Diane's "impractical nature" surfaced with a vengeance at times. Alison appeared to try to stand above the fray, yet her self-righteous bent quickly antagonized her siblings. Audrey Krotter, a woman who prided herself with her intelligence and affinity for all things of culture, began her sudden descent into madness. And then there was the treasure, a treasure that would ultimately push their avarice buttons. They began their mad scramble to find the gold and silver . . . two tons of it. Who would control the rights to this fortune? Why did they want the money from a man whom they clearly despised? How would they

Quite the read, and highly recommended for fans of personal memoirs

Paranoia can have more effects than just on the paranoid. "The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever"I s a memoir of Alison Johnson remembering her time growing up under a somewhat off kilter Father who always believed Armageddon was around the corner and the fear of disaster lead him to leave a lasting negative impact on his family. An unusual but intriguing story, "The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever" is quite the read and is highly recommended for fans of personal memoirs.