"From shell shock in World War I to childhood sexual abuse today, the reality of trauma has been denied. But as this indispensable book makes clear, ‘Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.'"

"From shell shock in World War I to childhood sexual abuse today, the reality of trauma has been denied. But as this indispensable book makes clear, “Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.”"

"I read this at the same time as I discovered her music. It’s very shocking, full of sexual abuse, drug addiction, violence, and racism, and opened my eyes to a lot of things I hadn’t known about or understood. It made me realize where songs like Strange Fruit had come from. The rawness of those songs had their roots in a devastating history of life experience."

"I remember reading this memoir some twenty years ago and thinking I had found a long lost childhood friend. With the language of a poet—both incandescent and glaringly fluorescent—Karr recounts sexual abuse, the charm and unreliability of her alcoholic father, and the emotional chaos of her brilliant, beautiful, and mentally ill mother. What emerges in memory is a meditation on truth found in love and self-knowledge."