Kelly Corrigan, THE MIDDLE PLACE author: Mr. Media Audio Interview

Author Kelly Corrigan takes Mr. Media to ‘The Middle Place’

Kelly Corrigan’s family is long on characters, her father George chief among them. The center of an ebullient, raucous and untested tribe, George greets every day by opening his bedroom window and calling out, “Hello World!” Suffice to say, it was the kind of childhood a girl could get attached to. But, in 2004, Kelly and her father were each diagnosed with late stage cancer, and Kelly discovered that although she had all the makings of an adult life—a marriage license, two birth certificates, a mortgage, and tax returns—she was still more daughter than mother.

The Middle Place is about being a parent and a child at the same time. It is about the special double vision you get when you are standing with one foot in each place. It is about the family you make and the family you came from and locating, navigating, and finally celebrating the place where they meet.

Corrigan is a natural-born storyteller, a gift you quickly recognize is her father's legacy, and her stories are rich with everyday details: fighting with her mother over an indispensable pair of Guess jeans, accidentally murdering her brother’s new boa constrictor, fastidiously French braiding her hair on prom night. Mixing childhood stories with those of her adult life, Corrigan takes us through an anxious winter of panic attacks, the long and wicked morning that anesthesia failed to soothe the birth of 10-pounder, and the vexing, disconcerting need to understand why her husband calls his mother so often.

Corrigan is a newspaper columnist and a contributor to magazines including O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, Good Housekeeping and Glamour.

Kelly Corrigan, author