Lies My Mother Never Told Me - Paperback

by Kaylie Jones (Author)

In her riveting memoir Lies My Mother Never Told Me, Kaylie Jones--the daughter of author James Jones (From Here to Eternity) and an acclaimed author in her own right (A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries; Celeste Ascending; As Soon As It Rains)--tells the poignant story of her relationship with her famous father and her alcoholic mother, and of her own struggles with the disease. A true story of privilege, loss, self-discovery, and redemption, Lies My Mother Never Told Me is Jones's unforgettable account of a not-quite-fairy-tale childhood and adulthood defined by two constants: literature and alcohol.

Front Jacket

Her mother, Gloria, was a brainy knockout whose fierce wit could shock an audience into hilarity or silence. Her father was James Jones, the award-winning author of From Here to Eternity and other acclaimed novels of World War II . Kaylie Jones grew up amid such family friends as William Styron, Irwin Shaw, James Baldwin, and Willie Morris, and socialized with the likes of Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and Kurt Vonnegut. When her father died from heart failure complicated by years of drinking, sixteen-year-old Kaylie was broken and lost, which in turn left her powerless to withstand her mother's withering barbs and shattering criticism, or to halt Gloria's further descent into the bottle--or that of her own.

Lies My Mother Never Told Me is a beautifully written tale of personal evolution, family secrets, second chances, and one determined woman's journey to find her own voice.

--Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

Back Jacket

Her mother, Gloria, was a brainy knockout whose fierce wit could shock an audience into hilarity or silence. Her father was James Jones, the award-winning author of From Here to Eternity and other acclaimed novels of World War II . Kaylie Jones grew up amid such family friends as William Styron, Irwin Shaw, James Baldwin, and Willie Morris, and socialized with the likes of Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and Kurt Vonnegut. When her father died from heart failure complicated by years of drinking, sixteen-year-old Kaylie was broken and lost, which in turn left her powerless to withstand her mother's withering barbs and shattering criticism, or to halt Gloria's further descent into the bottle--or that of her own.

Lies My Mother Never Told Me is a beautifully written tale of personal evolution, family secrets, second chances, and one determined woman's journey to find her own voice.