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Incarnate
The frightening story of a delusional mother and two of her sons struggles to understand and survive. All the more frightening because it is a fictionalized account of events of my and my brother's childhood.
236 pages, Paperback
First published February 15, 2013
1 person is currently reading
9 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Weill
8 books7 followersAuthor, artist and philosopher, Lawrence Weill writes articles and short fiction for both regional and national journals. He has three other books in print: Out in Front, Incarnate, and I’m in the Room. He also has poetry published in a number of journals. His artwork, including sculptures, paintings and drawings, hangs in several galleries.
Lawrence taught philosophy and ethics for many years at colleges in Kentucky and Georgia and his philosophy informs much of his writing. He holds degrees in mathematics, humanities and philosophy of higher education and has completed post-doctoral studies in both writing and philosophy. Lawrence has served in the roles of both academic dean and president at the college level.
An avid outdoorsman, Lawrence gardens, fishes, and saunters around in the woods of far western Kentucky where he lives with his wife Jennie in a house in the trees above a beaver pond. They also love to travel.
Lawrence taught philosophy and ethics for many years at colleges in Kentucky and Georgia and his philosophy informs much of his writing. He holds degrees in mathematics, humanities and philosophy of higher education and has completed post-doctoral studies in both writing and philosophy. Lawrence has served in the roles of both academic dean and president at the college level.
An avid outdoorsman, Lawrence gardens, fishes, and saunters around in the woods of far western Kentucky where he lives with his wife Jennie in a house in the trees above a beaver pond. They also love to travel.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 26, 2014
(I received a review copy through Bookie-monster.com)
My interest in this story came from my experience working in behavioral healthcare, and how psychotic symptoms often manifest themselves with extreme religiosity and delusions. A psychotic person often believes themselves to be Christ and to talk to God and other sorts of burning bush epiphanies. ( Then again, in our time, Christ would be forcibly medicated, but that’s another story)
We start the story in the mothers head as she sets forth on her religious passage of taking her two children, one of whom she believes has Christ-like powers. Tangents of delusions, such as walking into the funeral home of a stranger and thinking her child can raise the dead as Jesus did with lazarus, make the reader feel just as insecure at beign with the mother as are her two children. The author writes these thoughts in near stream of consciousness and without the alarm of a bystander, but within the mind of the psychotic. You can fully understand her actions based on her thoughts. It shows empathy without oozing sentimentality. The author is brilliant in these moments. The fact that this is the first hand account of a family suffering is clear. The marital and family dynamics are presented wonderfully.
The point of view switches from the mother, to the children who are fearful of their mother’s mental state and where she is taking them. Like all children, they have a faith in their mother but this is mixed with a silent fear and resignation to their assigned roles just to appease their mother. You will feel for these children trying to survive, you will want to have them over for pancakes. This is a story ripped from the headlines, but it dives inside the minds of all those involved. To quote REM, everybody hurts.
It is pretty lame of me to say I wish it were more entertaining instead of just intriguing, and I would have liked it more. It seemed repetitive at times, like a short story or novella material that an author was so invested in he had to lengthen. One thing I noticed, (and this is as nitpicky as I have ever been doing a book review) is that the paragraphs were nearly all the same length. Fairly long paragraphs without a break made it read like exposition. Not as fluid and page-turning as I’d like.
Certainly others may feel different. Everyone has different tastes, but I wasn’t glued to this story, but I was incredibly impressed. The author’s ability to switch POVS, particularly into the mind of a psychotic, were incredible. This was a uniquely personal story to tell, and the author has put down something meticulously and with care that I am sure provided a much needed catharsis. I got to believe that in a personal story such as this, it is more important to get it right than I make it entertaining.
My interest in this story came from my experience working in behavioral healthcare, and how psychotic symptoms often manifest themselves with extreme religiosity and delusions. A psychotic person often believes themselves to be Christ and to talk to God and other sorts of burning bush epiphanies. ( Then again, in our time, Christ would be forcibly medicated, but that’s another story)
We start the story in the mothers head as she sets forth on her religious passage of taking her two children, one of whom she believes has Christ-like powers. Tangents of delusions, such as walking into the funeral home of a stranger and thinking her child can raise the dead as Jesus did with lazarus, make the reader feel just as insecure at beign with the mother as are her two children. The author writes these thoughts in near stream of consciousness and without the alarm of a bystander, but within the mind of the psychotic. You can fully understand her actions based on her thoughts. It shows empathy without oozing sentimentality. The author is brilliant in these moments. The fact that this is the first hand account of a family suffering is clear. The marital and family dynamics are presented wonderfully.
The point of view switches from the mother, to the children who are fearful of their mother’s mental state and where she is taking them. Like all children, they have a faith in their mother but this is mixed with a silent fear and resignation to their assigned roles just to appease their mother. You will feel for these children trying to survive, you will want to have them over for pancakes. This is a story ripped from the headlines, but it dives inside the minds of all those involved. To quote REM, everybody hurts.
It is pretty lame of me to say I wish it were more entertaining instead of just intriguing, and I would have liked it more. It seemed repetitive at times, like a short story or novella material that an author was so invested in he had to lengthen. One thing I noticed, (and this is as nitpicky as I have ever been doing a book review) is that the paragraphs were nearly all the same length. Fairly long paragraphs without a break made it read like exposition. Not as fluid and page-turning as I’d like.
Certainly others may feel different. Everyone has different tastes, but I wasn’t glued to this story, but I was incredibly impressed. The author’s ability to switch POVS, particularly into the mind of a psychotic, were incredible. This was a uniquely personal story to tell, and the author has put down something meticulously and with care that I am sure provided a much needed catharsis. I got to believe that in a personal story such as this, it is more important to get it right than I make it entertaining.
December 20, 2013
How often has each of us asked, upon hearing about acts of outrageous neglect or cruelty, "How could he do that"? "What could motivate a person to hurt someone she loves"? "Are such people sick, or evil"?
In his courageous novel, Incarnate, Lawrence Weill delves into the mystery of mental illness without analysis, judgment, or sympathy. He does so by telling the story of Lara, a woman who believes that her young son is the incarnation of Christ, and of the family victimized by her delusions. Each chapter is told in third person narrative from one character's point of view--Lara, her sons Dale and Louis, daughter Annie, and husband Frank. This technique allows the reader to experience Lara's self-absorbed reality--complete with voices, visions, and tortuous logic--that compels her to subject her children to psychologically damaging and even life-threatening situations. Dale, at seven years old, carries the burden of his mother's idea of his purpose, but feels his real purpose is to protect his little brother Louis from greater hurt. Louis, too young to comprehend the reason for his mother's behavior, clings to his brother for solace in a world where adults do the unspeakable. Older sister Annie, who has largely escaped the consequences of her mother's illness, tries to help her father find her little brothers. And finally, Lara's husband Frank, ill-equipped to cope with his wife's schizophrenia, is determined at all costs to save his boys.
With spare but powerful prose, Weill avoids the temptation to overlay his narrative with sentimentality; rather, he allows readers to experience the story's poignancy on our own terms. Ultimately, Incarnate is a compelling testament to the resilience of the human spirit, even in its smallest and most vulnerable forms.
In his courageous novel, Incarnate, Lawrence Weill delves into the mystery of mental illness without analysis, judgment, or sympathy. He does so by telling the story of Lara, a woman who believes that her young son is the incarnation of Christ, and of the family victimized by her delusions. Each chapter is told in third person narrative from one character's point of view--Lara, her sons Dale and Louis, daughter Annie, and husband Frank. This technique allows the reader to experience Lara's self-absorbed reality--complete with voices, visions, and tortuous logic--that compels her to subject her children to psychologically damaging and even life-threatening situations. Dale, at seven years old, carries the burden of his mother's idea of his purpose, but feels his real purpose is to protect his little brother Louis from greater hurt. Louis, too young to comprehend the reason for his mother's behavior, clings to his brother for solace in a world where adults do the unspeakable. Older sister Annie, who has largely escaped the consequences of her mother's illness, tries to help her father find her little brothers. And finally, Lara's husband Frank, ill-equipped to cope with his wife's schizophrenia, is determined at all costs to save his boys.
With spare but powerful prose, Weill avoids the temptation to overlay his narrative with sentimentality; rather, he allows readers to experience the story's poignancy on our own terms. Ultimately, Incarnate is a compelling testament to the resilience of the human spirit, even in its smallest and most vulnerable forms.
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May 22, 2013Wow, that was a good yet difficult read. Kids living with a mother with mental illness. There are some rough scenes but it was interesting, especially since we get in everyone's heads. Review to follow.
July 22, 2013
Very compelling. It was hard to put down. Great insight into all of the different characters. I liked it very much!
July 23, 2013
A gripping, compelling story from start to finish; an even-handed and objective first hand account of mental instability.
September 15, 2017
This actually was a better book than my rating suggests. It was very well written, very well edited, insightful and interesting. My hesitation is that it was a rather bleak story in which I felt a great deal of angst over the children, the dangers they faced, and the fears they had.
Mom, Lara, is mentally ill. She hears voices, and believes that they are divine directions, although sometimes they are tauntings from the devil. She also believes that her eldest son--her second child, her daughter living with her husband's sister (although the fact that the husband is named Frank and the sister Francis is an odd quirk)--is the second coming or reincarnation of the Son of God. She launches the adventure by taking her two sons, aged six and four if I recall correctly, leaving no message for their father, and making a trip of several days to reach a beach in New Jersey where a group of assorted pagans are planning an unauthorized funeral pyre, and she is expecting her son to raise the old man from death. She succeeds in giving him first degree burns on his face, which she later assumes came from his exposure to the sun on the beach after they were separated. She then takes them on a run across several states, trying to figure out why God has abandoned her, the mother of his son, bouncing and kiting checks. Ultimately she leaves them in a hotel room and flees to another city.
The hotel manager connects them to the police who manage to find their aunt and from that their father and sister; their mother is last reported far away sought by the police, but their lives are shifting toward normal despite the horrors they experienced. However, along the way we are treated to the insanities of the mother and the fears and expectations of the children and the worries of the father and the sister, all very sad stories which are hard reading even with the mostly happy ending.
I admire the book and the brilliance of its author, but I won't read it again and am not recommending it.
Mom, Lara, is mentally ill. She hears voices, and believes that they are divine directions, although sometimes they are tauntings from the devil. She also believes that her eldest son--her second child, her daughter living with her husband's sister (although the fact that the husband is named Frank and the sister Francis is an odd quirk)--is the second coming or reincarnation of the Son of God. She launches the adventure by taking her two sons, aged six and four if I recall correctly, leaving no message for their father, and making a trip of several days to reach a beach in New Jersey where a group of assorted pagans are planning an unauthorized funeral pyre, and she is expecting her son to raise the old man from death. She succeeds in giving him first degree burns on his face, which she later assumes came from his exposure to the sun on the beach after they were separated. She then takes them on a run across several states, trying to figure out why God has abandoned her, the mother of his son, bouncing and kiting checks. Ultimately she leaves them in a hotel room and flees to another city.
The hotel manager connects them to the police who manage to find their aunt and from that their father and sister; their mother is last reported far away sought by the police, but their lives are shifting toward normal despite the horrors they experienced. However, along the way we are treated to the insanities of the mother and the fears and expectations of the children and the worries of the father and the sister, all very sad stories which are hard reading even with the mostly happy ending.
I admire the book and the brilliance of its author, but I won't read it again and am not recommending it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 9, 2025
Yikes this book! Alternating narrators tell the story of a woman with religious delusions and psychosis who believes her seven year old son is the second coming of the messiah. The year is 1957 and she leaves her husband in the middle of the night with that son and another who is five. She drags them across states as her mind and life unravels. It is a terrifying window into a world of abuse and mental illness but also a look at how much we are willing to do for those we are determined to protect. I recommend, but my next book needs to be a romp.
April 4, 2013
Interesting study of a delusional and narcissistic mother who believes herself to be the mother of the Second Coming of Christ.
November 1, 2013
Very interesting story. Well written. Recommend it.
July 14, 2014
Excellent creepy tale by a Georgia author!
June 13, 2014
I was intrigued by the back cover, and enjoyed the first half of the book, but then it began to get really bizarre. Was disappointed in the ending.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews