Book
Bastards : a memoir
Edition
First edition.
Publication Information
New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2015.
Physical Description
248 pages ; 22 cm
Summary
"Born into poverty in southern New Jersey and raised in a commune of single mothers, Mary Anna King watched her mother give away one of her newborn sisters every year to another family. All told, there were seven children: Mary, her older brother, and five phantom sisters. Then one day, Mary was sent away, too. Living in Oklahoma with her maternal grandfather, Mary gets a new name and a new life. But she's haunted by the past: by the baby girls she's sure will come looking for her someday, by the mother she had to leave behind, by the father who left her. Mary is a college student when her sisters start to get back in touch. With each reunion, her family becomes closer to whole again"--Provided by publisher.
Contents
- The day the music died
- Marigold Court
- Scars
- The secondhand washing machine
- Bringing Becky back
- Leaving Jersey
- Reflections
- Telling stories
- Discipline
- Things you can tell just by looking
- The debt
- Wake up
- Hammered
- Like a hole in my head
- Good daughter
- Rebekah two
- Join the club
- Quarter-life crisis
- Requiem
- Meeting Lesley.