Rise advertises itself as a memoir – and that’s largely what it is. It is Cara Brookins’ story of her ridiculously huge decision that affected her whole family. It is an absorbing story of a year in the life of a family as they undertook what would seem to be the impossible, and maybe thoroughly crazy, job of building their own house. Not a simple one-story house on a level piece of ground. No. A two-story, five bedroom house on sloping property.
The story of the publication of this book tells its own tale. Brookins tried initially to tell just the story of the building of the house – largely by herself with her children. The children were 16-year-old Hope, 15-year-old Drew, 12-year-old Jada, and 2-year-old Roman. Did they know anything about how to build a house? No. But YouTube can show you how! And that’s how they learned. It sounds like an okay story.
But here was the problem. Brookins tried to tell that story without telling the back story. Why? Why would anyone want to do this? Publishers told her she had to add that part to the story. And there’s no question, this was a difficult task because it involved baring her soul and her continued guilt for the choices that she made that put her children at risk.
We discover that back story in flashbacks all throughout the book. She was married to Adam, who over the course of her marriage sank ever deeper into schizophrenia, at one and the same time promising to protect her and the children and threatening to kill them all. She escaped from that marriage, only to marry another man, Matt, who turned abusive as he began to drink heavily and abuse drugs. She and her children were frightened and broken, keeping secrets from one another in a vain effort to protect each other.
Cara’s decision to build a house was based on two equally important and urgent facets of her own mind and personality. The first was her optimism and boundless conviction that she could do anything. We discover that this trait was bred into her by parents who, among other things, dug and built a full-size swimming pool themselves – with shovels! The second was a vision that she had of a house that would provide sanctuary. Listen as she describes how the idea came about:
The house stands sturdy and straight. To us—my four children and me—it is a marvel, as surreal and unlikely as an ancient colossus. It is our home, in the truest sense. We built it. Every nail, every two-by-four, every three-inch slice of hardwood flooring has passed through our hands. Most pieces slid across our fingers multiple times as we moved material from one spot to another, installed it, ripped it out, and then tried again. Often the concrete and wood scraped flesh or hair, snagging physical evidence and vaulting it into the walls. Sometimes bits of wood or slivers of metal poked under our skin. I have shavings of house DNA permanently embedded inside my palm and dimpled forever in my left shin. The house wove us all together in this painful and intimate union, until we were a vital part of one another.
The idea of building our own home was not born out of boredom, but rose as the only possible way to rebuild my shattered family while we worked through the shock waves of domestic violence and mental illness. The dangers of our past were more difficult to leave behind than we ever imagined.
How she did it, how she kept going against a looming bank deadline and some “professionals” who failed to show up when promised and turned out to be high most of their waking hours when they did show up, is a fascinating story.
The book includes a number of photographs of Cara and her kids in construction mode and a picture of the family in front of their completed house. Pretty amazing!
Our book group enjoyed reading this book and think you might enjoy it as well. If you do, check out the YouTube video of Cara and her kids as they were interviewed by the Clinton Foundation. Seeing them in person and hearing their voices just adds to the enjoyment!
–Jeanie Smith
Books, Brews & Banter 