Janet Sternburg - White Matter: A Memoir of Family and Medicine

Praise for Janet Sternburg

Phantom Limb

Janet Sternburg has found the perfect metaphor for the tragedy of pain and loss, the ultimate inevitabilities of life.

BILL MOYERS

At a time when many people are writing and publishing memoirs, Sternburgs Phantom Limb is uncommon. The book is a meditation on memory. The author experiences difficulties and writes about them, but she does so without a sense of victimhood or self-pity. Instead, she tells a tender story of the expansiveness of love.

THE JEWISH WEEK

Feelings shared by countless others luminously detailed recollections moments of consoling happiness.

KIRKUS

part moving account of greater love in the face of her mothers approaching death, part medical inquiry into neurology, and part spiritual meditation on the struggles and sufferings that living visits on each of us. Sternburg shows that emotional and spiritual integration is possible

BOOKLIST

Sternburgs prose is powered by imagistic accuracy and psychological immediacytwo horses that lesser writers let run wild. She holds their reins in a firm hand, and gently guides this book with intelligence and humility.

LIANA HOLMBERG, Author of Manoa

Optic Nerve: Photopoems

These carefully wrought poems are the perfect analogues to Sternburgs superb photographs: they are spare and direct yet oddly mysterious, and their everyday language is charged with emotion, energy, and good humor Sternburg maintains an exquisite poise.

MARJORIE PERLOFF, Author of Poetry in a New Key and The Vienna Paradox: A Memoir

[Janet Sternburgs] photopoems open up new ideas of metaphor, redefining both poetry and photography with a sense of interplay that can only come with equally weighted ability.

MOLLY PEACOCK, Author of The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Lifes Work at 72

Success in more than one artistic medium is a talent all in itself; one that has been accomplished with an economy of grace and fortitude in Janet Sternburgs collection Optic Nerve: Photopoems.

MARIE LECRIVAIN, Author of Poetic Diversity

The Writer On Her Work, Volume One

Groundbreaking a landmark.

POETS & WRITERS MAGAZINE

The Writer on Her Work is a collection which belongs on many reading lists, beside the bed, in the library, alongside the desk, in the classroom, in the bag that holds the notebooks and manuscripts.

ADRIENNE RICH, Author of A Human Eye

I dont remember exactly how I happened upon Sternburgs The Writer on Her Work. It seems now that it was always there, on the bookshelf next to my desk, where I keep the touchstone books. As I read of other womens struggles with their families, their traditions, their fearsall summed up on that blank sheet of paper, I felt like Molly Bloom at the end of James Joyces Ulysses, turning pages rapidly, saying, Yes, oh yes, yes indeed, uhhum, ay si I was not alone.

JULIA ALVAREZ, Author of Return to Sender

A compelling and superbly crafted collection It speaks to the active creative spirit.

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Tough, humorous, graceful, caring and joyful.

WASHINGTON POST

The Writer On Her Work, Volume Two

This book is a gift in every possible way.

CAROLYN SEE, The Los Angeles Times

These books belongs in the library of every woman who wants to make art.

500 GREAT BOOKS BY WOMEN

Copyright 2014 Janet Sternburg

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sternburg, Janet.

White matter: a memoir of family and medicine / Janet Sternburg.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-9904370-6-2

1. Sternburg, Janet Family Health.

2. Frontal lobotomy Patients United States Biography.

3. Frontal lobotomy History.

4. Psychosurgery History.

I. Title.

RD594.S744 2015

617.481 dc23

[B]

2014020100

Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts

98765432

2201 Northeast 23rd Avenue

3rd Floor

Portland, Oregon 97212

hawthornebooks.com

Form:

Adam McIsaac/Sibley House

Set in Paperback

for

Herman Engel

Etta Somerset

as always, for Steve

There is no pain. Suddenly, while youre asleep, theyll absorb your minds, your memories, and youre reborn into an untroubled world

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Hello,

Is there anybody in there

Just nod if you can hear me

Is there anyone at home

PINK FLOYD, COMFORTABLY NUMB

To feel is a fact.

CLARICE LISPECTOR

The Family

IDA SMALL

(b. unknown, Byelorussia; SMALNITSKY changed to SMALL at Ellis Island)

marries

PHILIP GOLDSTEIN (b. unknown, Poland)

Their children (b. Boston), in order of birth starting from eldest

MINNA b. 1904

marries SAM Son DAN b. 1930

JEN b. 1905

Unmarried

BENNIE b. 1909

Unmarried

HELEN b. 1911

marries LOU Daughter JANET b. 1943

PAULINE b. 1914

marries GEORGE Son PHIL b. 1939

FRANCIE b. 1920

marries HARRY

Contents

WHITE MATTER

THIS IS THE STORY OF A FAMILY WHO MADE MISTAKES. Who made choices based on imperfect knowledgeof the world, and of themselvesand had to live with their consequences, as did I, the next generation of that family.

The words prefrontal lobotomy were spoken often, common currency growing up in my family. Sometimes Id hear the term shortened to frontal lobotomy. I had no idea what