Car­la Stockton’s life­long quest to express her­self as a writer, actor, teacher, and the­atri­cal pro­duc­er against almost insur­mount­able odds is the sub­ject of this brave memoir.

Too Much of Noth­ing is a book of lamen­ta­tions about grow­ing up in a fam­i­ly with a dearth of love and encour­age­ment. In chap­ters struc­tured as linked sto­ries, the author process­es suf­fer­ing and bad choic­es and gains some late-in-life hope and under­stand­ing. Stock­ton chose her title from lyrics by Bob Dylan: ​“In the days of long con­fes­sions we can­not mock a soul / When there’s too much of noth­in’, no one has control.”

The author’s moth­er, who escaped Europe just before Hitler closed the gates, is por­trayed as a guilt-rid­den sur­vivor who gave up the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue her dream of becom­ing a physi­cian and cel­list for the safe­ty of an unhap­py inter­mar­riage, result­ing in sev­en chil­dren. Stock­ton, the eldest, expe­ri­ences much of the psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma often attrib­uted to chil­dren of Holo­caust sur­vivors. In the intro­duc­tion, she writes,“I under­stand the sense of long­ing, the unerasable fear, the embed­ded nos­tal­gia that comes with inher­it­ed PTSD.” Although bright and tal­ent­ed, she nev­er­the­less strug­gles with guilt, self-destruc­tive behav­ior, and low self-esteem. Dis­lik­ing her large body and angry about her over­whelm­ing care­tak­ing duties at home, Stock­ton is a gift­ed but rebel­lious, unhap­py teenag­er with few friends who nev­er­the­less man­ages to attend Colum­bia University. 

At heart, she is at heart a Shake­speare-lov­ing roman­tic. How­ev­er, she jumps at the oppor­tu­ni­ty to mar­ry the first good-look­ing man who shows inter­est in her, a Pol­ish Catholic engi­neer­ing grad­u­ate stu­dent. Her dream of becom­ing a writer is indef­i­nite­ly post­poned in def­er­ence to her husband’s career and their three young chil­dren. Scenes from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House are sprin­kled through­out the book; Stock­ton iden­ti­fies with Nora, the main char­ac­ter, trapped in her oppres­sive mar­riage. When finances become tight, she takes on a vari­ety of jobs, such as sub­sti­tute teach­ing. Her men­tor Stu, a won­der­ful ally, dies in a hor­ri­ble acci­dent, leav­ing her unpro­tect­ed in a hos­tile work environment. 

A native of upstate New York, Stock­ton reluc­tant­ly moves to Phoenix for her husband’s new job. She even enrolls her chil­dren in a Jew­ish day school and becomes active in the com­mu­ni­ty. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it is still a mis­er­able few years before she returns East to Con­necti­cut. She con­cludes, “… I am my mother’s daugh­ter. I am, as I have always been, a Jew in a world that doesn’t real­ly want us.”

At times the book suf­fers from an excess of expo­si­tion and rep­e­ti­tion. Nev­er­the­less, each chap­ter con­tains com­pelling scenes. Stockton’s painful divorce and ulti­mate lib­er­a­tion come only after decades of delu­sion that things would change. It’s a tough ride.