We Are All Shipwrecks: A Memoir

2017 | Biography

A mother's murder. Her daughter's redemption. And the complicated past that belongs to them both.

Kelly always knew that her family was different. She knew that most children didn't live with their grandparents, and their grandparents didn't own porn stores. Her classmates didn't sleep on a boat in the marina and she knew their next-door neighbors weren't drug addicts and johns. What Kelly didn't know was if she would become part of the dysfunction that surrounded her. Would she sink into the depths of harbor life? Or would she end up alone and dead on Hollywood Boulevard like her mother had years before?

When the grittier aspects of her family history are unearthed, Kelly decides to discover how the place she was raised will define the person she will soon become. To do this, Kelly goes back to the beginning, to a mother she never knew, a twenty-five year old cold case, and two of LA's most notorious murderers.

We Are All Shipwrecks is Kelly's story of redemption from tragedy, told with a tenderness towards her family that makes it as much about breaking free as it is preserving the strings that anchor you.

Kelly Grey Carlisle (Author)