A remarkable story of determination and survival with the power of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Howard Dully was born in 1948. At the age of 12, he became one of
the youngest victims of the ice pick lobotomy. It would take him 40
years to recover. Abandoned by his family within a year of surgery,
Howard was institutionalised in his teens, incarcerated in his
twenties, and homeless and alcoholic in his thirties. But in his
forties, in love with a woman who was determined to have a life
with him, Howard got sober, got married, got a college degree and
emerged into a kind of normalcy. He is now a tour bus driver, who
lives happily with his wife in California. This is his first
book.
Helping Howard tell his story is journalist and writer Charles
Fleming, former Newsweek staff writer and Vanity Fair contributor.
Dully has written a forceful account of his survival
*Observer*
[an] extraordinary memoir
*Mail on Sunday*
truly stunning
*Publishers Weekly*
astonishingly free of rancour
*The Times*
a tale of epic horror...Dully's courage in telling it inspires
awe
*Kirkus*
Adult/High School-In 1960, when Dully was 12 years old, his stepmother, with his father's approval, took him to see Dr. Walter Freeman, who performed a transorbital, or "icepick," lobotomy on him. His stepmother felt that he was "defiant" and "unruly," and Dr. Freeman believed in the power of the lobotomy to change personalities. Dully was given electroshock treatments to quiet him, then a sharp instrument was inserted above each eyeball into the frontal lobes of his brain and moved back and forth. The procedure took about 10 minutes and cost $200. However, it didn't have the desired effect, so his stepmother got him admitted to a state mental institution. As the author tells the story, he was just a kid who needed attention and affection, but instead he was essentially abandoned both by his family and the system, and he spent the next 40 years in and out of jails, institutions, and halfway houses, turning at various times to alcohol and drugs. In his 50s, he decided to find out what exactly had happened to him, and he began learning about Freeman and looking into his own past. The memoir is written in simple, straightforward language. Dully comes across as a very gentle man who doesn't want to offend anyone; even his descriptions of his sexual escapades are mild and euphemistic. This compelling and tragic story will appeal to fans of Torey Hayden and Dave Pelzer.-Sarah Flowers, Santa Clara County Library, CA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Dully has written a forceful account of his survival * Observer
*
[an] extraordinary memoir * Mail on Sunday *
truly stunning * Publishers Weekly *
astonishingly free of rancour * The Times *
a tale of epic horror...Dully's courage in telling it inspires awe
* Kirkus *
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