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'Caroline Baum's fascinating and moving memoir about being an only child in a very unusual family.
'Three barely felt like a family. It felt like it did not count. Like we were unfinished. Incomplete. There was always a gap at the table, room to set places for others. Visitors were few and far between. Mostly, there was only me.
'Only is a painfully honest and entertaining story of an unconventional childhood. It reveals what it feels like to be an only child and the focal point of two people damaged by trauma and tragedy, and the courage it takes to break free from the past and the pull of its secrets.
'Caroline Baum’s poignant and gripping memoir is for anyone who has felt the pressure of being at the fulcrum of a seesaw, the focus of all eyes and expectations - torn between love and fear, obedience and rebellion, duty and the longing to escape. In exploring what being a Good Daughter means and why it can be so difficult, Only uncovers truths that offer readers deep emotional insight.'
Notes
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Dedication: For Jacqueline and David
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Lone Child Lacked an Emotional Interpreter
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 25 February 2017; (p. 20) 'Caroline Baum is the only child of displaced parents. Her father arrived in London at age 10 on one of the first kindertransport from Vienna in December 1938. Her French, not Jewish, mother was orphaned at five by a horrifying family tragedy. Caroline was born in 1958 in London, where her parents had settled to construct a life together in neutral territory.' (Introduction) -
Caroline Baum : Only: A Singular Memoir
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , March 2017;'Baum’s memoir is replete with examples of emotional deftness of the highest order.
'I have very much enjoyed Caroline Baum’s published essays, and it is a delight to see two of them appearing as familiar landmarks in this big map of a memoir. One, entitled ‘Estranged’, appeared in last year’s collection of essays Rebellious Daughters, edited by Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman. In that piece, Baum wrote of her estrangement from her parents when she was in her mid-40s. Her rebellion came a little late, she admitted, but from what she told us it was not difficult to understand why it had come so late, and why it had become so necessary. Still, it was heartbreaking to read about it and when, at the end of that memorable essay, she spoke of a reconciliation and alluded to something that was about to happen for which she would have to summon up all the strength of her daughterly love, I was curious. What happened next?' (Introduction)
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Caroline Baum : 'Only: A Singular Memoir'
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , March no. 389 2017; (p. 36) ‘Some ‘only’ children have revelled in that status. Iris Murdoch called her family unit ‘a perfect trinity of love’. Caroline Baum sees her family less happily as a triangle: ‘There’s something uncomfortable about a triangle: it’s all elbows, suggesting awkward unease.’ We find out in the following 380-odd pages the whats and whys of this discomfort. Some of it is historical; perhaps most is historical. Her father came to England with the Kindertransport. Her French mother had an equally traumatic but more singular childhood. Both were deprived of a normal family life as children.’ (Introduction)
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Caroline Baum : 'Only: A Singular Memoir'
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , March no. 389 2017; (p. 36) ‘Some ‘only’ children have revelled in that status. Iris Murdoch called her family unit ‘a perfect trinity of love’. Caroline Baum sees her family less happily as a triangle: ‘There’s something uncomfortable about a triangle: it’s all elbows, suggesting awkward unease.’ We find out in the following 380-odd pages the whats and whys of this discomfort. Some of it is historical; perhaps most is historical. Her father came to England with the Kindertransport. Her French mother had an equally traumatic but more singular childhood. Both were deprived of a normal family life as children.’ (Introduction) -
Caroline Baum : Only: A Singular Memoir
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , March 2017;'Baum’s memoir is replete with examples of emotional deftness of the highest order.
'I have very much enjoyed Caroline Baum’s published essays, and it is a delight to see two of them appearing as familiar landmarks in this big map of a memoir. One, entitled ‘Estranged’, appeared in last year’s collection of essays Rebellious Daughters, edited by Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman. In that piece, Baum wrote of her estrangement from her parents when she was in her mid-40s. Her rebellion came a little late, she admitted, but from what she told us it was not difficult to understand why it had come so late, and why it had become so necessary. Still, it was heartbreaking to read about it and when, at the end of that memorable essay, she spoke of a reconciliation and alluded to something that was about to happen for which she would have to summon up all the strength of her daughterly love, I was curious. What happened next?' (Introduction)
-
Lone Child Lacked an Emotional Interpreter
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 25 February 2017; (p. 20) 'Caroline Baum is the only child of displaced parents. Her father arrived in London at age 10 on one of the first kindertransport from Vienna in December 1938. Her French, not Jewish, mother was orphaned at five by a horrifying family tragedy. Caroline was born in 1958 in London, where her parents had settled to construct a life together in neutral territory.' (Introduction)
