Since we now live in a nation where affluent, clueless parents are raising hideously out-of-control children, Martha Tod Dudman's memoir, "Augusta, Gone," will find an eager reading audience. Undoubtedly, the excessively repetitive and banal "Gone" will be hyped as a necessary self-help manual for bewildered, distraught parents. The reality is that this overwritten lamentation features two signficant characters: a screwed-up teenaged daughter and her equally screwed-up presumably adult mother. Augusta is an execrable excuse of a child: blithely ignoring the love, suggestions and admonitions of her mother, she smokes, drinks, does drugs, sneaks out at night and hangs out with whatever low-lifes exist in her bucolic Maine seaport town. The scope of "Augusta, Gone" is what will become of this teen-aged mess and how her dippy mother survives repeated, but predictable, disappointment after disappointment.

The author is herself a textbook recipe of why certain people should not become parents. As an indulged Jewish American Princess, Martha is suspended from her trendy prep school as a teenager and not permitted to attend graduation, to the consternation of her long-suffering mother. Consistently breaking her own parents' hearts, she trips on acid, wanders around the nation and Europe (presumably in search of some purpose for her life), and settles into a marriage which dissolves shortly after producing two children. Unable to find employment, Martha's mother does what any parent would; she provides her own daughter with a series of radio stations to own. Thus, by the time Martha begins to realize that as an adult, she has some serious responsibilities to shoulder, she hasn't an inkling as to what the idea of moral responsibility means. Is it any surprise that Martha's daugher becomes a living reincarnation of the mother?

Augusta, in turn, is obnoxiously rebellious and unbelievably insensitive to the dynamics of her own family. The daughter's self-absorbtion mirrors her mother's narrow selfishness; neither character elicits sympathy because both are out of orbit with the realities of modern American life. Augusta is able to recycle misery on her family precisely because she knows that her mother has a limitless supply of "love." There simply is no motivation to change; why should there be? Whenver Augusta returns from her infuriating escapades, Martha is right there to forgive and forget, if only her daughter would utter the magic words, "Mommy, I love you."

Readers will wade through nearly two hundred fifty pages of teen-age abuse, self-piteous lamentations and family dysfuction to discover the memoir's two incredible epiphanies: 1) raising children is really tough work and 2) even after we love our children, they can break our hearts. If your own experience has already taught you these esoteric lessons, "Augusta, Gone" will be exactly that -- gone.

Augusta, Gone is must reading for anyone who has ever been or plans to be a parent. More mothers and fathers than will probably admit it have experienced the anxiety and despair that Martha Dudman describes in this harrowing account, as her teenage daughter Augusta-angry, rebellious, perhaps even suicidal-slips away from her day by day. Augusta curses her mother, fights her, screams, shouts, does drugs, smokes, drinks, runs away. The author is in despair, doesn't know where to turn. She alternates between fighting to regain her child's love and looking for a safe place where she will be cared for-and far away. Her pain is made all the deeper by her awareness-and her rebellious daughter's-that she has been there herself. Each step deeper into the morass of alienation and despair is painfully told, and it is hard to imagine how either Augusta or her mother will ever return to a sane, sharing relationship.

This book has particular relevance today, as the news headlines are filled with stories of angry young people losing control. Augusta never takes up a gun, but she is not so different from the teenagers in Colorado, California and Pennsylvania whose anger has led them to terrible acts.

The book is not an easy read; the journey through it is wrenching, even exhausting, but it is beautifully written, and we are left at the end with hope-and what more can a parent ask?

Martha Dudman set aside a promising career in radio before she took up her pen to write this book. It was where she should have been all along. She is a gifted writer: her prose is exquisite, her imagery dead on, her use of language flawless.

When I saw the review of Augusta Gone in the New York Times, I knew I had to read it. I am so glad I did. So much of Dunham's story resonated with my own. Having been a sixties kid myself, and also having a teen-aged son who spiraled out of control until he, too, went to a wilderness program and a therapuetic boarding school, she and I have much in common. I found her story to be written with honesty, empathy, and the tremendous love and sorrow that come with raising a child with so many issues. Augusta certainly gets her strength and passion from her mother, but it is also what causes the heartbreak bewteen the two. What I loved about this book is that the author tells her own story, and does it without betraying her daughter or the other people in her family. So much of what we go through as parents is not what we expected, and even though we may be doing our best, there is the constant fear that we got it all wrong, and until you go through this kind of a journey, you can't understand how painful it is. Martha Tod Dunham is not only a good writer, but also a person with lots of love, insight and wisdom. I am so glad she wrote this book. I hope this is the first of many....