Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In
Combat Love, we'll meet a young Alisyn, whip-smart and precocious, the daughter of corporate America washout Andrew, a man fluent in five languages and most definitely possibly CIA, and Ivy League-educated Elaine, a high school drama teacher and the spitting image of Grace Kelly. Seemingly happy, yet deeply dysfunctional and more than just a touch narcissistic, Andy and Elaine are so busy with their own dreams and schemes that Alisyn quickly learns that if she was going to get somewhere, she would need to drive herself.
When Alisyn starts her freshman year at Red Bank Regional, the school rumored to have inspired the Ramones' "Rock and Roll High School," she finds herself a new family of local misfits-- no less troubled or dysfunctional, but far less selfish than the family at home. And at the center of this new constellation: the local punk band Shrapnel.
Inspired by childhood military games and decked out in World War II paraphernalia, Shrapnel feels like future stars in the making and the stuff teenage dreams are made of, especially when those teens are a group of suburban punks. While Alisyn's obsession with Shrapnel grows, her mother Elaine's own personal quest for love and belonging is fracturing their life at home, forcing her daughter into situations that are both heartbreaking and scary. Often unsure whether to fight or flee, Alisyn nonetheless manages to come out on top every time, through a combination of sheer confidence and moxie that her longtime CNN viewers would recognize.
Synopsis
CNN Anchor Alisyn Camerota's memoir Combat Love is her story of growing up longing for stability and attachment as the foundation of her family crumbled. Set on the Jersey Shore in the free-range 1980s, Camerota finds the belonging she craves courtesy of a local punk rock band named Shrapnel and their diehard fans. Combat Love chronicles her near-misses and misadventures at clubs like CBGB and Max's Kansas City, coupled with the sex, drugs, and punk rock of 1980s New Jersey. By the time she leaves home at sixteen, it feels like home had left her long ago.
Combat Love is also the story of two women, mother and daughter, trying to forge their own paths and independence, and find their own happiness, success and wholeness. Camerota's story searches for the linebetween shelter and risk, nurture and neglect, parenting and personal freedom. What are we willing to sacrifice for self-actualization and happiness? What if the answer is your mother, or your daughter?
The two-time Emmy-award-winning Camerota retraces her steps down an often gritty path toward her dream of becoming a journalist. At times heartbreaking and pulse-pounding, Combat Love is an inspiration for anyone who's ever searched for that elusive place called home.