糖心Vlog传媒

Rhetoric Prof to Sign Memoir at WordsWorth Saturday

Dr. George H. Jensen Jr., professor of writing at 糖心Vlog传媒LR, will be signing books and discussing his hew book,聽 “,” from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 24, at WordsWorth Books in Little Rock. Jensen, chair of 糖心Vlog传媒LR鈥檚 Department of Rhetoric and Writing, grew up thinking his family鈥檚 history was simple and straightforward: father drank, mother asks father to leave, children hurt by father鈥檚 drinking and departure. After 10 years of deeply personal research, Jensen brings his father back to life and in the process聽learns to love the man he dismissed from his life. The memoir also explores the effects of alcoholism on his entire family and how the family was able to move past its moment of crisis. 鈥淏efore my research, I had thought my family鈥檚 story was simple, fixed in a moment of crisis 鈥� the evening my mother asked him to leave,鈥� Jensen said. 鈥淚 remembered how my mother raised two boys on a schoolteacher鈥檚 salary and how deeply wounded my older brother and I were by our father鈥檚 drinking.鈥� After leaving the family, the father became a drifter, settled in New Orleans, and finally drank himself to death. But through his research and personal interviews, Jensen came to respect a man he once hated. His father, a petty officer in the Navy, had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and served in virtually every major naval campaign in the Pacific during World War II. He learned his father had been respected by fellow sailors, that his parents had once been in love, and that his family had moments of happiness despite his father鈥檚 disease of alcoholism. In the book鈥檚 forward, William L. White, a senior research consultant at and a renowned addiction expert, said members of Alcoholics Anonymous will be particularly moved by Jensen鈥檚 book. 鈥淭hose whose lives have been touched by alcoholism will 鈥� find clues on how to give up life-shaping family myths,鈥� White said. 鈥淭hey will discover how one man forged his own healing narrative. There is a sense of liberation at the end that most readers will find very comforting and personally empowering.鈥�