The Devil, The Lovers, & Me – My Life in Tarotby Kimberlee Auerbach
©2007 Dutton, Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc. ISBN
978-0-525-95021-9
(My review was originally published in Tarot World Magazine's inaugural
issue, Feb. 2008 -- Beth).
After a busy day of giving readings, what do Tarot people like to do, to unwind? Many of us love to curl up and escape into a good book.
Naturally, we would prefer that our recreational reading be about our favorite subject, but intelligent, interesting books featuring Tarot themes can be few and far between.
Until now.
In addition to last month's selection, we have a delectable treat in Kimberlee Auerbach’s brilliant The Devil, The Lovers & Me: My Life in Tarot. This true memoir is a genre-bender that some call creative non-fiction, in which the journalistic facts of a story may be somewhat eclipsed by its innovative, passionate telling.
And a passionate, witty, and thoroughly delightful telling it is, indeed.
With a writing style that feels like an instant best friend, the story unfolds through the cards of a Grand Cross Tarot reading, a variation of the Celtic Cross. Like many of the people with whom we Tarotists meet, Kimberlee has tried every therapeutic modality du jour you can think of: analysis, Reiki, hypnosis, and more. But happiness and serenity continue to elude her.
Relationships founder and it is clear from the start that there are all sorts of kinks and complications from her childhood and adolescence in need of unfrazzling.
When a friend recommends that she visit Iris Goldblatt, “Tarot card reader and mirror of the soul,” Kimberlee naturally expects a helpful peek into her future.
But as we all know, that is not what the Tarot does. Instead, with each chapter, Kimberlee pulls another Major Arcana card that sends her into a flashback of her quirky, funny, heartbreaking, absolutely genuine story.
Besides being a rollicking fun read, The Devil, The Lovers & Me demonstrates the Tarot in the truest light I have seen in a very long time.
Instead of cliché fortune-telling powers or mystical silliness that the popular media usually attributes to the Tarot, the entire story is woven around its more realistic use as a tool of reflection, healing and illumination.
Through the lens of the Tarot’s images, helped along by Ms. Goldblatt’s no-nonsense style of interpretation, Kimberlee recalls the episodes of her life.
In each chapter, starting with The Fool, moving through reversals and challenges like Death and the Devil, she begins to understand the lessons that the most pivotal incidents in her life have offered her.
By using her Tarot reading as the vehicle by which she reveals herself to the reader, Kimberlee shares her darkest secrets, her hidden sorrows, and her hilarious foibles.
Through the ups and downs of the Major Arcana, this is a sometimes bittersweet, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and always riveting portrayal of what it is to be a young woman who is talented, smart, and authentic in 21st century America.
