Too Close to the Falls: A Memoir

Gildiner, Catherine

Religion & Spirituality

Flamingo

Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the mid-1950s in Lewiston, New York, a sleepy town near Niagara Falls. Divorce is unheard of, mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon, and television has only just arrived. At the tender age of four, Cathy accompanies Roy, the deliveryman at her father's pharmacy, on his routes. She shares some of their memorable deliveries-sleeping pills to Marilyn Monroe (in town filming Niagara), sedatives to Mad Bear, a violent Tuscarora chief, and fungus cream to Warty, the gentle operator of the town dump. As she reaches her teenage years, Cathy's irrepressible spirit spurs her from dangerous sled rides that take her "too close to the Falls" to tipsy dances with the town priest.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Penguin Publishing Group

A hilarious and moving follow-up to The New York Times bestselling Too Close to the Falls. Catherine Gildiner shares the next chapter in a story that has already captivated many readers. It's 1960, and twelve-year-old Cathy McClure has just been thrown out of Catholic school for filling the holy water font with vodka. Hoping to give her a fresh start, Cathy's parents leave behind small-town Niagara Falls for suburban Buffalo. There, as the quaint world of 1950s America recedes into history, Cathy dives headfirst into the tumultuous new decade. But when tragedy strikes at home, Cathy-vandal, HoJo hostess, and civil rights demonstrator-must take on her most challenging role yet.

After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties

Catherine Gildiner recounts her remarkable coming-of-age in the 1960s with the same wit, candour and exhilarating storytelling that has made Too Close to the Falls a modern classic. When Cathy McClure is thirteen years old, her parents make the bold decision to move to suburban Buffalo in hopes that it will help Cathy focus on her studies and stay out of trouble. But “normal” has never been Cathy’s forte, and leaving Niagara Falls and Catholic school behind does nothing to quell her spirited nature. As the 1960s dramatically unfold, Cathy takes on many personas — cheerleader, vandal, HoJo hostess, civil rights demonstrator — with the same gusto she exhibited as a child working split shifts in her father’s pharmacy. But when tragedy strikes, it is her role as daughter that proves to be most challenging.

After the Falls

Arts & Literature

Knopf Canada

Catherine Gildiner recounts her remarkable coming-of-age in the 1960s with the same wit, candour and exhilarating storytelling that has made Too Close to the Falls a modern classic.When Cathy McClure is thirteen years old, her parents make the bold decision to move to suburban Buffalo in hopes that it will help Cathy focus on her studies and stay out of trouble. But normal has never been Cathys forte, and leaving Niagara Falls and Catholic school behind does nothing to quell her spirited nature. As the 1960s dramatically unfold, Cathy takes on many personas cheerleader, vandal, HoJo hostess, civil rights demonstrator with the same gusto she exhibited as a child working split shifts in her fathers pharmacy. But when tragedy strikes, it is her role as daughter that proves to be most challenging.From the Hardcover edition.

After the Falls by Gildiner, Catherine (2010) Paperback

Vintage Canada

The vivid and touching sequel to the bestselling memoir Too Close to the Falls. It's 1960 and twelve-year-old Cathy McClure has just been thrown out of Catholic school for-among other transgressions-filling the holy water fount with vodka. In the hopes of giving Cathy a fresh start away from their small town, the McClures leave behind Niagara Falls and the family pharmacy to start over in suburban Buffalo. But life in a subdivision and a school filled with "pubescent cheddar" holds little appeal for a girl who began working at four and smoking at nine. As the quaint world of 1950s America recedes into history, Cathy dives headfirst into the 1960s. Along the way, she adopts many personas with gusto-vandal, HoJo hostess, FBI suspect, civil rights demonstrator- but when tragedy strikes at home, Cathy must take on her most challenging role yet. As candid and compelling as Mary Karr's The Liars' Club and Jeanette Walls's The Glass Castle, After the Falls is an irresistible account of one girl's comingof-age during a tumultuous era and the moving tale of a rebellious spirit learning what it means to be a daughter.

VIKING

Too Close to the Falls

In a memoir about life in small-town America, the author relates her adventures growing up in the 1950s as the daughter of a pharmacist in Lewiston, New York, a small village near Niagara Falls.

Viking Adult

During her decade in prison, Kate Fitzgerald has learned a few things. The best way to survive is to absorb yourself in your own world. Never make eye contact with your fellow inmates. And the last person you can trust is your prison psychiatrist – not only is he likely to be lazy and incompetent (really, why else wouldn’t he be getting rich off of well-heeled clients instead?) but if you complain about him you’re going to be labelled as a “permanent malcontent” and denied parole. So when Dr. Gardonne offers Kate a temporary absence and a job working for him, she only takes it because she knows that turning him down could be worse for her in the long run – counted in prison years, of course. But the real challenge is figuring out why he would choose her. On the surface, it’s pretty clear. Kate has spent her incarceration immersing herself in the writings of Sigmund Freud, and has become a recognized expert on his work. Dr. Gardonne represents the members of a psychoanalytic organization that is being attacked at its core: Anders Konzak, the hand-picked director of the Freud academy, has been boasting to the media that his new research on Freud will bring the entire profession of psychoanalysis to its knees. He’s also been receiving death threats. And Kate, as an outsider, is the only one Konzak will talk to. Though she doesn’t trust Gardonne, Kate accepts his offer, and she races to uncover Konzak’s secrets before he publishes his work. Never one to work well with others, Kate is less than thrilled to find out Gardonne has hired a private detective to be her partner. Jackie Lawton is a hardened ex-con who has spent most of his life in prison and only recently turned things around by starting his own business. From the moment the two meet, Kate sees that it won’t be easy working with a man who isn’t really interested in the intellectual battle at hand and who keeps her prison time at the forefront of every conversation. And can he really be trusted? When key players – who were all last seen with Kate – begin to turn up dead, there’s the very real possibility she’s being set up by Gardonne. After all, who would believe the word of a convict serving time for murdering her husband? All she can hope is that following the threads of Konzak’s research to his sources will keep her one step ahead of Gardonne and lead her to the real killer. With Seduction, Catherine Gildiner gives us not only a gripping detective story full of shifting characters and fast-paced twists but a remarkable intellectual thriller. Through the letters and papers of Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin and the venerable Wedgwood family, Gildiner brings the personalities and ideological conflicts of the past to life in the present. Along the way we meet an assortment of characters, from social misfits to the demure but resolute Anna Freud, who is still living in the London house where she brought her ailing father for the last year of his life, and where she actively guards his legacy. The story takes us from Toronto to Vienna, London, the Isle of Wight, New York and back again to Toronto – each locale seen through the eyes of Kate, who relishes in the beauty of a world that has been denied to her for a decade. From the Hardcover edition.

Seduction

Literature & Fiction

Literary

During her decade in prison, Kate Fitzgerald has learned a few things: absorb yourself in your own world, never make eye contact with your fellow inmates, and the last person you can trust is your prison psychiatrist. When Kate's psychiatrist, Dr. Gardonne, offers her a temporary leave and a job working for him on her favourite subject, the work of Sigmund Freud, she leaps at the chance. Things become complicated, and quickly, when Kate becomes an unlikely confidant to the director of the Freud academy. who is receiving death threats and attacking Dr. Gardonne's psychoanalytic organization. Racing to uncover secrets and working with an unwelcome partner, a private detective, Kate is forced to consider that she may have been set up. But by who? Catherine Gildiner gives readers a gripping detective story full of fast-paced twists--a remarkable intellectual thriller.

Contemporary

A therapist creates moving portraits of five of her most memorable patients, men and women she considers psychological heroes. Catherine Gildiner is a bestselling memoirist, a novelist, and a psychologist in private practice for twenty-five years. In Good Morning, Monster, she focuses on five patients who overcame enormous trauma--people she considers heroes. With a novelist's storytelling gift, Gildiner recounts the details of their struggles, their paths to recovery, and her own tale of growth as a therapist. The five cases include a successful but lonely musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her and her siblings in a rural cottage; an Indigenous man who'd endured great trauma at a residential school; a young woman whose abuse at the hands of her father led to a severe personality disorder; and a glamorous workaholic whose negligent mother had greeted her each morning with "Good morning, Monster." Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried. It will take courage to face those realities, and creativity and resourcefulness from their therapist. Each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes humorous. It offers a behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office and explains how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds.

Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Recovery

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Mental Health

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gildiner, Catherine. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gildiner, Catherine

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gildiner, Catherine. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Too Close to the Falls: A Memoir

Too Close to the Falls: A Memoir

After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties

After the Falls

After the Falls by Gildiner, Catherine (2010) Paperback

After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties

Too Close to the Falls

Seduction

Seduction

Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Recovery