katekintailbc | My Lobotomy by Howard Dully, Charles Fleming (Reply)

My Lobotomy: A Memoir
by Howard Dully, Charles Fleming
(Audio)
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7249810/

Call me naive, but going into this, the only things I thought I knew about lobotomies were:
1. They are a crazy procedure used a long time ago but no longer
2. Doctors drilled a hole in the patient's skull and extracted part of the brain

Turns out neither of those is exactly right. I had no idea that doctors actually stuck tools (or friggin ICE PICKS) into people's eye sockets, blindly swirled the tools around for 10 minutes, and then pulled them out again along with anything that came with. EWWWW. I don't understand how ANYONE could think this would work as a CONSISTENT medical procedure. Sure it's possible that doing that might have touched/scrambled something enough to make it work. But it's just as likely that doing that would have made something not work. I also don't understand how anyone, practiced or not in this, could think of doing this to a 12-year-old child acting (as far as we can tell from this one-sided story) like most 12-year-old boys.

I don't read a lot of memoirs, and while earreading this I felt that maybe I shouldn't have been reading this one. Seeing what parents do to their children really makes me lose all faith in humanity.

Still, Howard does a good job of communicating what his life was like and how having a lobotomy changed his life completely. What was wrong with him? Why did they do a lobotomy on him? As far as I could figure out, the reason was that his step mother was absolutely crazy and thought he was the root of all her problems. Reminded me a LOT of the mother in A Child Called It.

After the operation, he didn't seem to change all that much, so he was sent away to live in state facilities and mental hospitals for the rest of his childhood. He was never valued by anyone, least of all his family, and never taught that he could do something with his life. So, obviously, he didn't. It took a long time for him to realize what he could do (eventually he did go to school, did have children and a stable relationship, and did get a job he liked and could do).

Then he was approached by some people wanting to do a radio documentary on the doctor who performed Howard's lobotomy. Once the ball was rolling, the documentary then became about him. He was able to talk with others who had had similar experiences or were involved somehow, able to see his medical records (which was pretty much unheard of), able to finally talk about what had happened to him.

There was a fair bit of repetition throughout. I felt like things were being restated in case *I* couldn't remember what had gone on earlier in the book, and that was silly. Also, because this was the audio version of the book, I would have LOVED to have actually been able to hear the radio broadcast instead of the narrator saying word-for-word what was in the radio broadcast. That would have made more sense to me than listening to the narrator tell about the interviews when they were conducted and then listening to the narrator quote those same interviews all over again when the documentary was aired. *shrug*

Overall, it was a good book, but highly depressing. I probably would have liked it more if I'd read it, as I wasn't overly fond of the narrator (it's WEIRD to me to have some random person read a memoir, not the author himself, especially when the author apparently has a great radio voice). I was shocked and horrified many times, I was sad and sympathetic as well. There wasn't a lot to cling to in the story; many times I just wanted it to be done so the pain could end. But it did end on a somewhat high note.