Escape Points: A Memoir

by Michele Weldon

""I don't know how Michele Weldon made wrestling, breast cancer, and single parenting tie together so naturally, so beautifully, but in fact each is a perfect metaphor for this book's message of soulful triumph." --Elizabeth Berg, "New York Times"-bestselling author, "The Dream LoverDeftly lacing heartbreak with humor and insight, Michele Weldon provides a potent antidote to the crazy, harried, single mom stereotype in "Escape Points. "Untethered from a comfortable, upper-middle-class life with a handsome but abusive attorney husband, Weldon relates the challenges and triumphs of the years that followed as she raised three growing sons alone in the face of cancer, an ambitious career, and the shadow of her ex. As she maneuvers through a complicated life of long daily commutes, radiation treatments, supporting three boys' all-consuming high school wrestling careers, and trying to mitigate their hurt and resentment at an absent father, Weldon shows that single mothers, and their children, can succeed when others--neighbors, family, teachers, and in this case one incredible wrestling coach--step in to fill the void and the remaining parent stays the course with common sense and dutiful love.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

I am emerita faculty in journalism at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where I taught for 18 years. I am a senior leader with The OpEd Project since 2011, editorial director at Take The Lead since 2016 and author of six nonfiction books: I Closed My Eyes (Hazelden, 1999), Writing to Save Your Life (Hazelden, 2001); Everyman News: The Changing American Front Page (University of Missouri, 2008); Just Me And My Three Sons (SheBooks, 2011); Escape Points: A Memoir (Chicago Review Press, 2015); Act Like You're Having A Good Time (Northwestern University Press, 2020). I live in the Chicago area, have three grown sons and have recently started to paint again. Writing is my first love.

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book free from Goodreads and enjoyed the experience. When I finished this book I sat and was torn on how to write this review. There were many incidents in the story I could relate to. It was a fast reading story and not filled with antagonist feelings toward an ex husband. It is a good survival story for any woman with children. Thank you for allowing me to share your work.

[Maureen Neylon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always liked Michele Weldon's writing, used to love her columns in the Trib when I first moved to Chicago. I bought this book after going to an author talk at a local bookstore, so felt connected to it. I loved the references to HS wresting, especially knowing the OPRF wrestling reputation. Good mix of memoir including done pretty tough subjects.

[Michele Wucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Michele Weldon is alternately funny and brutally honest, and sometimes both at the same time. Her wrestling metaphor of earning points for escaping holds is spot-on for thinking about the challenges that life brings us -and for giving ourselves credit for getting through the muck.

[Rachel Carr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book from a goodreads giveaway.

This book is well written and moves at a decent pace - enough to keep my interest. That was important because it was difficult for me to connect with the book. Memoirs aren't my favorite genre, and I don't have children and don't know anything about wrestling. So the main points of the book didn't connect well with me. If you are a single parent and/or someone interested in wrestling, those are elements that you will probably like in this book.

[Christina Bravo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for Moms with sons! I felt the book was mostly about wrestling and everything this amazing woman gave up for her sons--but maybe that's just what I was focused on. Thank goodness for incredible coaches like Mike Powell. I can only hope my son runs into a couple of those.

[Robinne · Rating 1 out of 5]

This material is fine for a personal journal. It is not a book.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Escape Points by Michele Weldon is a very highly recommended memoir about a single mother trying to raise three sons (with an absent ex), and survive cancer. Escape Points chronicles twenty-five years of her life after her divorce.

She divorces her physically and emotionally abusive ex-husband when their boys are young (6, 4, and 1). He then removes himself completely from their lives (and doesn't pay any support). Weldon shouldered forward, carved out a career for herself, and made a life for her and her boys. This included many, many wrestling matches for all three of her boys. As she is struggling to keep everything together, she receives the news that she has cancer and now must now juggle daily radiation treatments. "You can do it all. You just cannot do it all well all of the time..... Trying to make the most of the life you have been granted is a noble thing to do. And the grace arrives."

"I knew I could not make up for the father who left my sons. I may never be able to forgive myself for choosing a man who would treat our sons this way. But his story is not mine. Mine is a story of what happens when the door closes and you stand waist-high in the murky puddles brought on from someone else’s tsunami. When the shock of the water subsides and you realize you would never drown, you count your blessings."

Weldon feels guilty that she chose to marry someone who would go away; someone who would willfully leave his children and place his desires first. "I could do my part, but I could never do both parts." This realization caused her to seek out and turn to men of honor who could be a good male role model, including her brother and an incredible wrestling coach who went above and beyond the norm to take care of all of his "boys".

I just wanted to hug her when Weldon wrote: "Children can forgive many things - the hurts, the failures, the mistakes. But they cannot forgive you forgetting that they come first." Yup, all children, even older children, want the knowledge that they are loved unconditionally. And it hurts when they aren't. I also sort of want to hang out with Weldon and swap stories, especially when her non-support paying ex sent the boys these odd messages about his needs and desires without ever once saying he was sorry for everything he had done to them, and then asking for their forgiveness.

Weldon noted that: "I heard a story on NPR a while back about a 108-year-old woman who managed to outlive and outwit most of her family and friends. She had what experts called 'adaptive competence,' a powerful trait that allows and inspires you to view your life as half full regardless of setbacks. I think I have that. I know my sons do." I wish them all the best.

The memoir is well written and organized by dates so you can keep track of the time period. While I'll be the first to admit that not all parts held my rapt attention (I like wrestling but I did skim through some of the wrestling match discussions), I think, in totality, this is an excellent memoir and should resonate deeply with the many single mothers out there raising sons.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Chicago Review Press for review purposes.

[Laura.125Pages · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original review at www.125pages.com

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3 Stars

♦ I always feel bad when I don’t love a memoir. This is someone real talking about their real life and issues, and I like people and I want to love their stories. But this was another memoir that I just could not click with. An abused woman, leaves her husband and raises three boys while dealing with breast cancer should be super powerful. But to me thus read more like a check list of time, on this date I did this, and on this date I did that. I wanted to feel an emotional tie with the author not get a book length day planner. Now I will say the parts dealing with her ex in court were the emotion I wanted to see, those scenes just made you ache for her. Unfortunately those were the only times I felt that connection.

◊ Favorite lines from Chapter 22 – “My stomach feels now as if it is somewhere above my rib cage, and I try to act like I am not drowning in all the unhappiness, all the sordid details of who did what to whom, all the shame and the fault and the pain, the long‑ ago hurts.”

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book from a First Reads giveaway. I am not giving this book a low rating because I thought it was badly written. Weldon can write well, that's a fact, I just got very weary of the endless procession. Ex husband did something mean, the boys wrestle, she cheers. Health scares are thrown in. I've never been interested in wrestling and now I'm less so. There's just SO much wrestling. The descriptions of the injuries and nasty diseases are a bit too graphic and made me glad my kids are into band and drama. I would actually read something by this author again, if the subject matter were a little more interesting.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mother's ferocious commitment and the important role of a coach and a sport makes for a compelling read.

Weldon writes with emotion and passion of her ferocious effort to do what is right and best by and for her sons as a single parent and professional writer and teacher. Powerful testimonial of the importance of the sport of wrestling and the exemplary coach who helps model their understanding of what it means to be a man of integrity and honor.

[Georgia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I never got to the part about her fighting cancer...the wrestling descriptions just kept going on and on and on and on and on and on. Yup...like that.

[Laura Whalley · Rating 3 out of 5]

More detail than I was interested in, more like a personal journal of this single mother of three boys who wrestle in high school who is also a professor and cancer survivor.