Reviews
From
Publishers Weekly
About
three-quarters into this labored memoir of a difficult childhood, a preteen
Leigh looks around the rundown cinderblock house she, her parents and two
younger siblings are about to rent. It's the latest in a series of way stations
on her dysfunctional family's fruitless cross-country forays between California
and West Virginia. "I want to close my eyes until I turn eighteen,"
she writes. It's no wonder. In her first book, television producer Leigh, the
oldest child of an adored mother and violent, alcoholic father, chronicles the
years of abuse, near poverty and shameful secrets that fueled her longing to
escape. In an early scene, Sandra's father terrorizes her mother until she
flees from the house into a cold night without coat or shoes. A few months
later, Sandra's mother goes to the hospital to have her fourth child, but
returns alone; the baby died, her mother reports, "And I don't ever want to
talk about it again." As Leigh and her family continue to search for
better luck and a stable life during the late 1960s and early '70s, Sandra
focuses on the missing child, and, believing she has another sibling, pursues
the question until-as an adult-she makes contact with her sister. Like many
stories of survival, Leigh's includes some powerful moments, and she is a
sympathetic narrator. Though this long volume lacks the depth and insight of
others in the genre (Angela's Ashes and The Liar's Club come to mind), it's
likely to offer welcome comfort to readers who endured childhood traumas
themselves.
Copyright
2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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