Night Navigation

By Ginnah Howard

Book Overview

Night Navigation opens on a freezing-rain night in upstate New York: the kindling gone, the fire in the woodstove out. Del's thirty-seven-year-old manic-depressive son needs a ride, but she's afraid... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151014329
• ISBN13: 9780151014323
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.0" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

It had more meaning for me than I suspected.

I chose this book for no other reason than that I was married to an addict. I'm still in a way searching for understanding. Night Navigation is clearly written by someone who 'gets' it: the sense of strangeness in your every day life, as well as cycle of loss and hope that come with living with an addict. This book reinforces that for the loved ones of an addict: * There is no real set of rules to follow. Please - if you find some, let me know, I'll add them to my collection. * The patterns repeat, no matter what. You will still have hope, even when you think you've stamped it out of yourself. * You do what you can to survive it. * Everyone will have an opinion about what you should do * Every instinct you have is to hang on * Families Anonymous tells you to let go. * Who the heck knows what's really right? What I didn't expect was the eerie familiarity in Howards' spartan writing style. I was glued to it, I guess because I'm still surprised how many people are going through the same thing. It felt for a few chapters as if someone had been eavesdropping on my life. The expensive Apple computer he got to record his music, but never learned how. The Musician's Friend catalog purchases of items that he'll only turn around and trade or sell. The dry recitation of every drug he ever used while trying to get a bed in rehab. That the author has been through this in person is no surprise. It's a novel, but based on the all too real world that she experienced for herself. The conflicting inner voices of the characters she speaks with struck so close to home. I was impressed with the voice and style she chose for Mark's inner dialog. This among other parts felt all too real to me - the often disjointed thoughts clashing together. The awareness of the pain and stress his mother was experiencing. The frequent wish to recoil from it. Maybe you're curious. Maybe you're going through something similar. It's an accurate portrayal of what I've been through, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Parenting

Night Navigation isn't a novel just about addiction; it touches all the facets of being a life-long parent. There's so much said about "letting go" and it's encouraging to read about "holding on." How can any of us mete out our love for our children? I rooted for Del Merrick all the way through. Wonderful, understanding novel.

Experiencing NIght Navigation ....

I took this exquisite first novel on the train to Minnesota and read ... stopped to ponder ... read again .... stopped to breathe ... kept on reading. I left some of it to read on the way back home. I stopped so often to think of the author, her voice as she told this story, how so much was so familiar, the scenes I'd seen before, even if only in my own imagination. Her boys ... her boys ... the woman who said, "you'll never get over this", her perseverance in pursuit of her art/writing/living/breathing/loving/despairing. And through it all her pain which I could feel all the more for the understated way she communicated it. I had some difficulty speaking of this book to friends as I struggled not to cry while speaking ... it didn't keep me from going on, however, particularly with a certain young man. I told him I'd thought of him at times as I was reading this book ... maybe because I'm so happy to have gotten to know him, to have seen signs of his getting past much of his own baggage and to celebrate the young man he seems to be at this time of his life At one time I stopped reading at the part about the narrator's lover giving her the silent treatment about her not wanting to go with him to Vegas, nor wanting to drive him to Albany airport and finally not wanting to have to go pick him UP at the airport later on!!! I pondered on that scene for quite a while, internalizing much of it and thinking, he is testing her ... she falls all over herself rescuing her son all of which he disapproves, but she shrinks at "rescuing" or "doing for" him!!! And there are few if any words used to convey these feelings, this terrible NEED he has for her, so he punishes her with silence and coldness. I felt only a little sympathy for him; of course, this is familiar territory to me in some ways. BUT I GOT IT and empathized with his pain, his need and his stubborn refusal to allow her to see him in his terrible vulnerability. But like her I felt like banging him over the head at his apparent stupidity ... (Why doesn't he get it, why can't he see how anxious I am about driving in uncertain weather, to places unfamiliar, etc., etc.) That old, if he really loved me, he wouldn't put this on me ..... on and on and on .... Ms. Howard's incredible honesty is the most stunning of all ... I don't have words to describe how beautiful I see this story, the love over, under and all around the heaviness of the tragedy and pain. I cannot imagine what she must have experienced in the writing of it .. and I will welcome the next book ... Sally Chirlin

Dark, poetic, beautiful

I wouldn't expect a work that deals with mental illness, suicide and drug addiction to be devoid of sorrow and pain, but an astounding aspect of "Night Navigation" is the light that shines through despite these afflictions. Ginnah Howard is able to convey, through the mind-voices and actions of Del and Mark, how it is possible- and necessary- to have solace, even some humor or joy, in the everyday aspects and routines of life that many take for granted. Uncomplicated (yet not small) things like meal preparation rituals, the physical care of a homestead, or the shared love of a dog can make painful lives bearable. The book is delivered in a manner that is spare, elegant and graceful. I often found myself amazed at the author's ability to convey so much in so few words. I truly hope readers will not be put off by fears that this book is "depressing." This is a beautifully-written novel. I felt there was so much insight, creativity, and buoyancy- in the writing itself and in the minds and actions of Del and, yes, even Mark. It's dark, yes; very sad, yes- but Del and Mark have access to clear thinking and hope and I was left with hope for them as well. And although this book may be especially interesting to those are or have been close to mental illness, suicide or drug addiction, I feel that many who haven't may still find themselves somewhere here.

"Drug dramas. And manic depression."

Night Navigation covers some rough terrain, Del Merrick, sixty, trapped in a cycle of addiction and codependency with her son, Mark, thirty-seven, in an unusually honest novel. After her husband's suicide years ago, Del is left to raise her two fatherless boys, both scarred by their father's death. When Aaron, the younger son, dies as well, Del and Mark face a future weighted by the past. Labeled a Mentally Ill Chemical Abuser (MICA), Mark has a unique set of problems, his mania often medicated by the hard drugs that make him an addict. Time after time, mother and son have done their agonizing, dysfunctional dance, Mark chronically scamming, Del slowly untangling herself from her son's destructive compulsions. Somehow, amid all the chaos, there is hope, an incremental movement toward a different way of life, or at least an attempt to live differently. Del's long-time affair with the stoic Richard offers some respite from Mark's drama. A man who loves her deeply, Richard refuses to take part in the family dynamic and won't cosign Del's involvement in Mark's disease, her incessant micromanagement of Mark's life. Conditioned to expect the worst by her tragic circumstances, Del resists Mark's addict behavior, but falls into familiar patterns when the mania asserts itself. So Del continues her struggle to detach, yearning for time alone to work on her drawings, Mark poised to enter yet another treatment facility. Perhaps Richard is the healthiest of the three, although he and Del have their own communication problems. Brutally frank, this novel pulls no punches a blow-by-blow account in alternating chapters, Del's narrative and Mark's. Every form of treatment is explored, from detox to a stint at Lazarus House, a therapeutic community that tears you down in order to build you up. Mark tolerates each place, but always finds an excuse to leave, his junkie brain taking over in spite of periodic calls to his NA sponsor and sporadic attendance at 12-Step meetings. Mark never gets past the voice of his disease, the mind set of the user. Clean for a few months, he refuses his psych medications, setting off another manic cycle, Del dragged back from whatever progress she has made. Mark's predictable rationalizations are painful, his sly manipulation that will only lead to another dead end. At thirty-seven, Mark thinks like an adolescent, untrustworthy, a liar who will sell everything he owns to use. This is an unsettling, familiar saga, a family in constant crisis, emergency numbers on a laminated card in Mark's wallet, Del dreading the sound of the ringing phone. Still, unbelievably, there are strains of recovery, minor chords of hope in a discordant tune, Mark whistling in the dark to hide his fear. But life goes on and Del does the best she can, a forgiving heart her greatest flaw, a broken son her burden. Luan Gaines/2009.