Trauma Memoir

A lively memoir of growing up with blind African American parents in a segregated cult preaching the imminent end of the world—for fans of James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird. It’s 1970, and Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of a church whose...

Claudia Garcia crossed the border because her toddler, Natalia, could not hear. Leaving behind everything she knew in Mexico, Claudia recounts the terror of migrating alone with her toddler and the incredible challenges she faced advocating for her daughter’s health in the United States. When she arrived in Texas, Claudia discovered that being undocumented would mean more than just an immigration status—it would be a way of living, of mothering, and of being discarded by even those institutions we count on to care.

A little girl is kept from the world, and her mother attempts to recreate her life on her daughters. As a child, she experiences some of the worst aspects of parenthood but finds the help she needs because innately she knew life had more to offer.

Using the story of Raven and the Box of Daylight (and relating it to Sun Tzu’s equally timeless Art of War) to deepen her narration and reflection, Hayes expresses an ongoing frustration and anger at the obstacles and prejudices still facing Alaska Natives in their own land, but also recounts her own story of attending and completing college in her 50s and becoming a professor and a writer.

The Parents is a story of a woman who overcame years of abuse and trauma by discovering the dark root from which it all formed: the generational programming passed down through her family line, and belief systems that could reach back thousands of generations which created repeated patterns of pain and damage. She realized that these beliefs ingrained in her since birth shaped her in ways she never fully understood.

Linda Litteral is a survivor of incest and rape who used art to heal from the destruction to the body and spirit which comes from physical and sexual abuse. In this courageous memoir, Litteral shares the story of her abuse, spanning eight years of incest perpetrated by her grandfather, a rape she experienced in high school, and physical and verbal violence she suffered at the hands of her first husband.

As a true story told through dual perspectives, a powerful love ignites amidst the chaos in a combat zone between Baghdad and Abu Ghraib, Iraq. Two young soldiers from completely different lives unite together on a deployment - mostly under the privacy of mosquito netting, since fraternization was frowned upon. Jennifer was more timid about needing to keep their relationship private, whereas Ryan didn’t take well to orders and was rather experienced in manipulating the system.

With 30 years of experience as a nursing home administrator, Natalie Zeleznikar was no stranger to the strengths and limitations of health care. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, the plan was a double mastectomy and a couple months to recovery. Her reality was eight total hospitalizations in five years after nearly dying - not of cancer, but of sepsis. With a unique perspective blending the experiences of a patient and a health care worker, The Scars You Can’t See follows Natalie’s journey of struggle and survival.

This is an inspirational memoir and self-development book of a man who not only recovered from his Vietnam War wounds that blinded him but also from the force of darkness of self-pity, frustration, and despair.

On December 10, 1953, tragedy was visited on a family when Nathaniel Allen was murdered on the Sampit River by his White employer, who lured him into the meeting under the false promise of reconciliation. Allen's death was recorded as an accidental drowning, a deliberate cover-up of the bullet hole seen by more than one witness. Three generations later, Phil Allen Jr. revisits this harrowing story and recounts the "baton of bitterness" that this murder passed down in his family.

By his 40s, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his 50th birthday, Peter’s 75-year-old mother unveiled a bombshell: His deceased father was not his biological father. Peter was conceived in 1945 via an anonymous sperm donor. The emotional upheaval upon learning that he was “misattributed” rekindled traumas long past and fueled his relentless research to find his genealogy.

After nearly forty years of marriage, church ministry, and homeschooling a family of 10, Kendana lost Johnny to a sudden illness. This audio holds the lessons their lives unleashed in a way that feels like The Notebook meets The Shack. Listen to her beautiful, simple words, as Kendana tells of her enduring romance with a farmer boy, their journey through heartbreak, their fierce passion for community, and the surprisingly healing embrace of covenants honored.

When Melody Horrill arrived at university she was a troubled and lost young woman, hiding behind a carefully crafted exterior. She had experienced a childhood of emotional and physical trauma mainly at the hands of her violent father that was as damaging as it was brutal. One day Melody volunteered to help her lecturer monitor pods of river dolphins nearby. There for the first time she encountered Jock, a solitary dolphin with a maimed fin, who lived apart from the highly social pods. Melody was to form a bond with Jock that gave her the key to freeing herself from the demons of her own past.

The dream of joining the military after high school to serve the country other family members had honorably served takes a terrifying turn in her first assignment after boot camp. Authority Beyond Reproach tells the author's experience of physical, emotional, and sexual trauma from her superiors in the immediate chain of command.

In this awe-inspiring memoir, Nalevate, Lanale Robinson shares his breathtaking journey of resilience, determination, and triumph. Diagnosed as a quadriplegic after a life-altering accident. Lanale defied the odds, and rose above challenges. Today he walks, a living testament to the boundless potential of the human spirit.

An Uncompromised Life takes listeners through Colleen Gallagher’s past unhealthy relationship which led her to compromise her soul. From this relationship, an unplanned pregnancy was created. Faced with a life-changing decision, and shocked because western medical doctors told Colleen it would be challenging for her to get pregnant after being diagnosed with cancer at age 14, she chose to let her child go.

This is not an inspirational memoir. This is not trauma porn. This is a memoir about the forces that impact our lives, both good and bad. Athena Stevens has never learned the name of the doctor whose lack of intervention at her birth lead to her cerebral palsy, but she feels the consequences of...

'At once so personal, yet utterly universal. A visceral, thoughtful and emotionally compelling story.' Melissa Leong In a beautifully crafted memoir of captivating emotional honesty, the SBS Insight host sets out to understand the dad she never really knew, and – along the way – herself...

A deeply moving story of the beauty and brutality of life, and death, on the world's most unpredictable and perilous mountain. Sitting just lower than Everest at 8,611 meters above sea level on the China-Pakistan border, the Savage Mountain claims the lives of even the most experienced climbers. Alongside severe altitude, the weather is notoriously volatile and the climb relentlessly steep. A staggering one in four attempts result in death on the mountain.

A "riveting" and touching memoir about the understanding one's cultural identity from pastor, business leader, and innovator Dave Gibbons (Makoto Fujimura). A surprising diagnosis of PTSD led Dave Gibbons to look to his past for clues to explain the unexpected result. Born to an American soldier...