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Title: Behind the Ivy Walls
Author: Hal English
Narrator: Greg Walston
Format: Unabridged
Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
Language: English
Release date: 02-11-16
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
Behind the Ivy Walls is based on the true story of a young boy seemingly born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. It is written in the time-honored tradition of a feel-bad/feel-good story in which someone else's tragedy teaches us life lessons about positive thinking and seizing each day as a gift. This book details the quest for a true identity, the love of a family, and a safe place to call home.
After years of mental and physical abuse, the boy discovers that he was secretly adopted and begins an unlikely journey to search for his family. In this wonderful Huck Finn type story, one surprising deception after another surfaces, culminating in a secret so powerful it had to be buried for more than 50 years.
Peppered full of twists, life-determining challenges, positive role models, and many surprising skeletons in the closet, it ends with the unraveling of a father's ultimate vengeance and a mother's final retaliation.
Members Reviews:
Family differs as to what happened....
Reddit
We write in response to The Times' article "Trenton native Hal English authors memoir 'Behind the Ivy Walls'" (Jan. 4).
The family of Hal English recognizes his achievement in writing a book. Yet, we need to make a statement as to the fiction in his memoir and to published articles about the book, including the article cited above, which we believe tarnish the legacy of our parents.
Although he had some affiliation with it, Dr. Harrison Force English, Hal's adoptive parent, was not the head of Trenton State Psychiatric Hospital, as the book and some reports indicate; the senior staff and their families lived on the grounds of the hospital, which we did not. Dr. Hubert M. Hoffmann was medical director at the time.
Dr. English worked at St. Francis Hospital in Trenton, starting in 1938. After serving in World War II as a lieutenant colonel, he returned there as senior psychiatrist until his death in 1970.
The Times' article states that Dr. English worked at a time "when doctors' mistreatment of the mentally ill was acceptable." There is no proof or records that our father abused or mishandled patients in any of his professional affiliations.
As to "the abusive hand of a drunkard (i.e. Dr. English)," mentioned in The Times' article about the book and interview with Hal, family, relatives, neighbors and friends had never seen alcohol abuse by Dr. English.
We remember our father as a loving, hard-working man who put in 50-60 hours weekly to provide for his family without complaint.
The parts of the memoir pertaining to Hal's parents have many inaccuracies. Hal wrote that his childhood was filled with pain and loneliness, but that does not entitle him to be insensitive to the family by misrepresenting his parents.
-- Elizabeth (Avery) V. English,
Stockton
Fredrick C. English,
Lambertville
Arthur R. English,
Chesterfield
Vernon L. English,
Palm Harbor, Fla.
The writers are the surviving children and adopted children of Dr. Harrison F. English.
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