“Fifteen-year-old Bob Livingstone’s emotional life froze when his father died unexpectedly. Numb and tearless through the funeral, then continuously numb from drug use; failing in school; avoiding friends; unable to communicate with his stricken family-his disengagement with the world continued into adulthood. He never completely understood why.

Twenty years later, Livingstone finally is ready to meet and engage his demons-in the sandtray. His book, Redemption of the Shattered: A Teenager’s Healing
Journey Through Sandtray Therapy, is a chronicle of his struggle and eventual triumph over his grief. In the sand, he reprocesses the scenes over and over, changing the dynamics, characters, landscapes and solutions, until he gets it right.

Each of the twenty-four chapters is a synopsis of one sandtray session. Each chapter begins with a narrative that is part autobiographical and part fanciful, starring a character named “Rob”. Each figure is chosen to play a part of the author or of his trauma, often with a Jungian sense of symbolism. At the end of each narrative, he provides interpretative commentary. Finally, each chapter ends with “Family Discussion Questions” designed to elicit conversation and raise awareness.

Livingstone tells his story with haunting intensity. His early sandtrays are populated with ghouls and monsters straight out of his nightmares. Representing guilt and self-loathing, they berate him with horrifying screeds of accusation. They tell him that he disgraced his family by not mourning properly. That he is a terrible son who can’t offer comfort or anything else to his mother and sister. That he is a loathsome failure. And worst of all, that his father, an angry, joyless man, was literally disgusted to death because of him. That he killed his father with his worthlessness.

As Livingstone enacts and reenacts his trauma, he stumbles into new realizations. He begins to revise his truths, and to find solutions to his nightmares. He creates positive characters that represent his resilience. He learns to face, respond to, and finally befriend his demon characters. With the new insight that his father’s funeral service was an unfeeling travesty delivered by an indifferent rabbi, he gives his sandtray father a proper burial. He learns to celebrate his father’s life and finds ways to connect with him. The journey from torment to peace is profound, and it is vividly rendered.

Redemption of the Shattered is not an easy read. I found myself needing to take
frequent breaks to absorb the book’s impact. Its prose is dense, and it packs an
emotional wallop. Even as he distances himself by telling his story in the third person, and by fictionalizing his adventures, the honesty of his writing is a gift to anyone who has similarly experienced trauma, alienation, the inability to digest or to forgive.

The marketing of the book puzzles me. The book seems to be aimed at adolescents, but has sophistication, as well as a heft, that better suits adults. I also am puzzled about the “Family Discussion Questions.” While I understand that their purpose is to invite readers into the process, it creates an abrupt shift from the flow of the narrative. It’s like telling a gripping story, only to frequently interrupt the action to generate discussion questions. (Sample question: “Rob talks about insecurity during this chapter. What makes you feel insecure?”) I wish Livingstone would have trusted his readers and his powerful prose to create their own response. But these, for me, were minor problems that didn’t distract from the book’s power. I wanted to run out and buy a world of sand figures: bats, witches, ghouls and coffins included.”

Elizabeth Harte, M.S.