Felicia Sullivan's volatile, beautiful, deceitful, drug-addicted mother disappeared on the night Sullivan graduated from college, and has not been seen or heard from in the ten years since. Sullivan, who grew up on the tough streets of Brooklyn in the 1980s, now looks back on her childhood among drug dealers, users, and substitute fathers. Sullivan became her mother's keeper, taking her to the hospital when she overdosed, withstanding her narcissistic rages, succumbing to the abuse or indifference of so-called stepfathers, and always wondering why her mother would never reveal the truth about the father she'd never met.

Ashamed of her past, Sullivan invented a persona to show the world. Yet despite her Ivy League education and numerous accomplishments, she, like her mother, eventually succumbed to alcohol and drug abuse. She wrote The Sky Isn't Visible from Here, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, when she realized it was time to kill her own creation.

"An unforgettable story, breathtakingly told. This book will break your heart, and make it stronger." Janice Erlbaum, author of Girlbomb

"Sullivan's bracing, pared-to-the-bone prose evokes compassion by being impressively free of the narcissistic self-worship that so often infects books of this stripe." Kirkus

"Felicia Sullivan's memoir is a brave and lovely one. It's full of terrifying moments in the mean streets of Brooklyn as well as courageous ones in the complicated byways of familial love. Sullivan has created a world that's beautifully crafted and powerfully inhabited. Brava." Roxana Robinson

Felicia Sullivan's mother disappeared on the night Sullivan graduated from college and has not been seen or heard from in the ten years since. Sullivan, who grew up on the tough streets of Brooklyn in the 1980s, now looks back on her childhoodandmdash;lived among drug dealers, users, substitute fathers, and a host of unsavory characters. Ever the responsible child, Sullivan became her mother's keeper, taking her to the hospital when she overdoses, withstanding her narcissistic rages, succombing to the abuse or indifference of so-called stepfathers, and always wondering why her mother would never reveal the truth about the father she'd never met. But then, Sullivan's volatile, beautiful, deceitful, drug-addicted mother altered the truth in many cruel ways.

Ashamed of her past, Sullivan invented a persona to show the world. But keeping up a facade has its price, and before she knew it, she, too, was snorting coke in nightclubs, throwing back shots of tequila like candy, and eventually taking a leave of absence from her Ivy League graduate program. In fact, she had become her mother.

A book about secrets and forgiveness, The Sky Isn't Visible from Here is also the story of a young woman unravelingandmdash;and then putting her life back together again.

Felicia C. Sullivan received her MFA from Columbia University's writing program and has been awarded fellowships from Tin Housemagazine and SLS Literary Seminars. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been published in anthologies and journals. In 2001, she founded the award-winning literary journal Small Spiral Notebook. Sullivan lives in New York, where she works in publishing.