Memoir Dysfunctional

In his account of the sensational life and murder of Grady Stiles Jr., also known as the legendary carnival freak Lobster Boy, author Fred Rosen explains how Stiles' death was engineered by his wife, Mary Teresa, the carny known as the Electrified Girl. Rosen describes how Mary Teresa arranged for her husband's murder after years of physical and emotional abuse. During Mary Teresa's dramatic trial, Rosen becomes a character in his own book.

In this emotional and laugh-out-loud coming-of-age memoir, the co-creator of Hulu's brilliant Pen15 grapples with the reappearance of her estranged father —and whether it's possible to reconnect before it’s too late. For Anna Konkle’s childhood, her father was her hero—a...

Was it My Fault? is intended to offer solace and guidance to those ensnared in toxic relationships, dispelling the notion that abuse is solely physical. Inspiring self-discovery, healing, and empowerment, Alana offers a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, a rallying cry for survivors to reclaim their narrative—urging them not just to survive, but to thrive.

On November 29, 1909, police were called to a ramshackle home in East Orange, New Jersey, where they found the emaciated body of 24-year-old Oceana "Ocey" Snead facedown in the bathtub - dead of an apparent suicide by drowning. There was even a note left behind. But it would not take authorities long to discover that Ocey's death was no suicide. And Ocey's own mother and two aunts were far from the sorrowful caretakers they appeared to be.

No one can accuse Diane Danvers Simmons of telling a familiar story. Instead she offers a wickedly witty, candid, irreverent British coming-of-age story with a fresh take on maternal abandonment. In My Mother Next Door she shares the life lessons learned growing up in the revolutionary 1970s while her narcissistic mother charted her own unfathomable course to independence and freedom.

Running with Scissors meets Grey Gardens in this “vivid tragicomedy” (People), a riveting riches-to-rags tale of a wealthy family who lost it all and the unforgettable journey of a man coming to terms with his family’s deep flaws and his own hidden secrets. “Wake up, you filthy beasts...

Acclaimed author Lauren Slater ruminates on what it means to be family. Lauren Slater's rocky childhood left her cold to the idea of ever creating a family of her own, but a husband, two dogs, two children, and three houses later, she came around to the challenges, trials, and unexpected rewards of playing house. In these autobiographical pieces, Slater presents snapshots of domestic life, populating them with the gritty details and jarring realities of sharing home, life, and body in the curious institution called "family."

A compelling book about dysfunction, forgiveness, a life-changing transformation, and the key to leaving trails of light. If you've struggled with a dysfunctional family, divorce, having mental illnesses, being overweight, being a single parent, having a life-threatening health issue, or challenged by dating again in mid-life, then you will want to find out how one woman found her way to forgive, survive, and thrive. Told with wit and wisdom, Leaving Trails of Light and Toilet Paper is a journey of discovery toward love and light.

Would the love of learning instilled by the grandmother and her unconditional love be sufficient to overcome the abandonment by the parents and the hostile environment into which the child was born? This is the true, dramatic, and heartbreaking story of a child growing up with her paternal grandmother and siblings in the most terrifying and dangerous neighborhood known as Fort Apache in Callao, Lima-Perú. The police and other authorities did not dare to put a foot in this place for fear of being killed.

Little Billy Eiland grew up in the projects having never known his real father. Julie, his mother, a white prostitute with a penchant for black men, would always change the subject when Billy asked her about his origins. Thus, Billy grew up not knowing who he was, but knowing that he was different. Billy’s siblings' fathers were all 100 percent black, but Billie had blond hair and blue eyes. Julie’s other children had the last name of Clark. Billy was the only child whose last name was Eiland. Not knowing his true identity, Billy was forced to forge a new one.

Each week, millions of viewers tune into The Discovery Channel to watch their favorite dysfunctional American family, the Teutuls. Their hit TV show, American Chopper, features Paul Teutul, Sr., and his sons Paul, Jr., and Mikey, along with a supporting cast of mechanics and friends. Together, they create some of the most incredible and outrageous motorcycles in the world.

This is the story of a courageous young woman who grew up in a home headed by a sexual predator and an abused mother who lost her mind when Christine was only 14, disappearing until she was a mother herself. It recounts the secrets and lies that were designed to protect the darkest family secret of all, which had the effect of making the eight children strangers to each other, and then prisoners of the passions that disordered their lives, and set them against each other. Christine's story is filled with intense dramas and the saga of Christine's climb out of the family wreck.

In the years just before the Santa Clara Valley morphed into Silicon Valley, it was a sleepy agricultural basin dotted with cherry orchards. Carol Sveilich’s youth in San Jose was a combo platter of glass walls, cool music, useless gadgets, groovy neighbors, and worry. And, oh yes—sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. In Reflections from a Glass House, the indelible memories of fumbling through school and the passage through adolescence near the “City of Love” are masterfully awash with comedic prose, amusing storytelling, and gut-wrenching recollections.

On a snowy November day in 1997, in Flint, Michigan, police found the body of 45-year-old waitress Nancy Billiter. Her corpse had survived a botched attempt to burn it. An autopsy revealed that she'd been bound, beaten, sexually violated, and then injected with a lethal mixture of battery acid and heroin. Police suspected Nancy's friend, Carol Giles, 26, and Giles' boyfriend, Tim Collier, who had often boasted of a murderous gangland past.

Domestic Abuse - Parent Abuse, Children’s Story, Those Left Behind, Our Stories & More of Our Stories Bundle. These are stories about the friends and families who have lost loved ones. Some have been forced to leave their abuser by going into hiding. Others haven't been as lucky. These people that are left behind tell their heartbreaking stories of their losses and grief.

In The Long Journey Home, their mother, Margaret Robison, finally gets to tell her side of the story, which is more nuanced and poignant than one would ever imagine. Beginning with her childhood in southern Georgia, with its façade of 1950s propriety masking all sorts of recognizable demons (alcoholism, sexual repression, misogyny, suicide, and disease) up until her mental breakdown and, in recent years, her recovery from her massive stroke, The Long Journey Home is Robison's attempt to make sense of a complicated, often tortured, and complex American life.

Jeri takes the listener on a deeply personal story of her experience being the daughter of a notorious drug-trafficking kingpin serving a life sentence in maximum security federal prison. With candor and courage, Jeri writes about how her childhood trauma of witnessing domestic violence and finding out at the age of 10 that her dad was in prison instead of away at school broke her in ways she didn’t fully understand. Hers is the story shared by millions of sons and daughters of the incarcerated across the country.

After a decade of caring for crazy and keeping her mother’s mental illness a secret from the outside world, 20-year-old Paolina Milana longs for just one year free from the madness of her home. When she gets the chance to go to an out-of-state school, she takes it, but her family won’t leave her be. Letter after letter arrives, constantly reminding her of the insanity rooted in her family tree. Even worse, the voices in her own head whisper words she’s not sure are normal.

The S Word is the raw and compelling true story of a girl coming of age raised by a mother with a mental illness, and who nearly suffocates in the silence she was taught to value above all else - until she finally finds the strength to break free of the secrets binding her and save herself. The S Word is a book for anyone who may be keeping secrets...for children too little to know they warrant a voice...for teenagers too confused to think they have a choice...for adults too overwhelmed to do what’s right.

Implosion: Memoir of an Architect’s Daughter delves into the life of visionary architect Woodie Garber and the collision of forces in the turbulent 1970s that caused his family to collapse. Soon after the family’s move into Woodie’s glass house, his need to control begins to strain normal bonds; and Elizabeth’s first love, a young Black man, triggers his until-then hidden racism.