Half the House: A Memoir
by Richard Hoffman
Category: Literary Criticism

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. The hardcover publication (1995) of this "spare, poignant" memoir (Time) resulted in the arrest of a child molester and the headline: "Author's Writing on Abuse Brings New Victims Forward." Our 20th Anniversary Edition features a new introduction by Louise DeSalvo—author of Writing as a Way of Healing—contextualizing the events this book set in motion, the cries for help Hoffman received from men across the country, and the talk he had with an 11-year-old boy who thanked him "for making it stop." HALF THE HOUSE, an unflinching autobiography about a blue-collar family struggling to care for two terminally ill children as the third child, the author, is subjected at age 10 to sexual abuse by his coach, is also a moving work of literature and a testament to the healing power of truthtelling. It "offers heartening evidence... of the human capacity to endure and prevail" (Washington Post).