If only you people could follow directions
Subtitle: a memoir
By: Jessica Hendry Nelson
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9781619022331
Subjects: Family; Children of drug addicts; Biography; Children of parents with mental disabilities
Description: "If Only You People Could Follow Directions is a spellbinding debut by Jessica Hendry Nelson. In linked autobiographical essays, Nelson has reimagined the memoir with her thoroughly original voice, fearless writing, and hypnotic storytelling. At its center, the book is the story of three people: Nelson's mother Susan, her brother Eric, and Jessica herself. These three characters are deeply bound to one another, not just by the usual ties of blood and family, but also by a mother's drive to keep her children safe in the midst of chaos. The book begins with Nelson's childhood in the suburbs of Philadelphia and chronicles her father's addiction and death, her brother's battle with drugs and mental illness, her own efforts to find and maintain stability, and her mother's exquisite power, grief, and self-destruction in the face of such a complicated family dynamic."--