In the Shadow of Eight
by Collin Gosselin
DESCRIPTION
Collin Gosselin, one of the sextuplets from Jon & Kate Plus 8, breaks his silence to share the shocking story hidden behind the facade of a picture-perfect family.
For years, the world watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 through a lens of curated joy. But while the cameras captured the milestones, they missed the moments that defined Collin Gosselin’s life: the Christmas morning where the gifts were reclaimed as soon as the cameras went down, and the basement room where silence was his only companion.
In the Shadow of Eight is the first account of a secret childhood lived in the gaps between the frames. Collin is finally sharing the truth about being held down, the basement cell where he was hidden for years, and the cocktail of powerful antipsychotics forced on an eleven-year-old boy. This is a reckoning with the dark side of fame: the systems, the entourage, and the institutions that allowed one boy to be erased. This is the never before told story of how he escaped and found his way back from the dark.
MY THOUGHTS
I am not afraid to admit that I am drawn to reality television, especially when families are concerned. For years, I watched the Duggar family, the Bates family, and the Gosselin family. The Gosselins’ fame grew on TLC with the popular show Jon & Kate Plus 8, and later Kate Plus 8 after the couple split up. Their divorce was well-publicized, and for reasons I am not fully aware of, Jon Gosselin soon became estranged from his children.
The child in question for this review is now 21 years old, and it is Collin Gosselin, one of the sextuplets, consisting of three boys and three girls, with two older children who are twins. The full title of this book is In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood. Of course, this is Collin’s memoir and his version of what he had to experience. Personally, I had to stop watching the show after Jon left because Kate grew to be more and more intolerable. Is she guilty of the claims Collin makes in this book? That is not up to me, the reader, or the former fan, to answer.
I have to make another confession about a show I have been watching for the past three years, Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. This year, Collin is one of the participants. Reading this book, watching him on that show, and watching the various interviews he has given have truly made me sympathetic to the things he experienced as a young child. Quite naturally, the scars he carries on the inside may never truly heal.
My prejudicial view in choosing Collin’s side stems from being constantly and painfully reminded of what Dave Pelzer relayed about his own childhood experiences in A Child Called “It,” The Lost Boy, and A Man Named Dave. There were other books Pelzer wrote, but I just could not read anymore.
Collin is now a young man in college, and I am genuinely interested in seeing where his future takes him. After reading his account of his childhood, I cannot help but feel for the little boy he once was and the pain he has had to carry into adulthood. No child should have to face the kinds of experiences Collin describes, and my heart aches for what he says he endured. While none of us can change his past, I hope the years ahead bring him the peace, healing, and happiness he deserves. Most of all, I hope he knows that his childhood does not have to define the man he becomes.
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