She had her addictions and one of them was reading.

Sometimes something catastrophic can occur in a split second that changes a person's life forever; other times one minor incident can lead to another and then another and another, eventually setting off just as big a change in a body's life.

Since Mom wasn't exactly the most useful person in the world, one lesson I learned at an early age was how to get things done, and this was a source of both amazement and concern for Mom, who considered my behavior unladylike but also counted on me. "I never knew a girl to have such gumption," she'd say. "But I'm not too sure it's a good thing.

I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets.

She wore tight corsets to give her a teeny waist - I helped her lace them up - but they had the effect of causing her to faint. Mom called it the vapors and said it was a sign of her high breeding and delicate nature. I thought it was a sign that the corset made it hard to breathe.

When I asked my mother, ‘how do I tell people about you’ her answer was ‘tell the truth’. But of course, the truth is never simple.

Memoir is about handing over you life to someone and saying, This is what I went through, this is who I am, and maybe you can learn something from it.