Synopses & Reviews
With the startling emotional immediacy of a fractured family photo album, Jennifer Lauck's incandescent memoir is the story of an ordinary girl growing up at the turn of the 1970s and the truly extraordinary circumstances of a childhood lost. Wrenching and unforgettable,
Blackbird will carry your heart away.
The house on Mary Street was home to Jennifer; her older brother B.J.; their hardworking father, who smelled like aftershave and read her Snow White; and their mother, who called her little daughter Sunshine and embraced Jackie Kennedy's sense of style. Through a child's eyes, the skies of Carson City were forever blue, and life was perfect -- a world of Barbies, Bewitched, and the Beatles.
Even her mother's pain from her mysterious illness could be patted away with hairspray, powder, and a kiss on the cheek...But soon, everything Jennifer has come to love and rely on begins to crumble, sending her on a roller coaster of loss and loneliness. In a world unhinged by tragedy, where beautiful mothers die and families are warped by more than they can bear, a young girl must transcend a landscape of pain and mistreatment to discover her richest resource: her own unshakable will to survive.
Review
"The unblinking look of one child at a hard world. Written gloriously and movingly." Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes and 'Tis
Review
"A beautifully written memoir utterly absorbing, alternately heartbreaking and inspiring." Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters
Review
"Heart-wrenching, vividly remembered, and shockingly real." The Denver Post
Review
"A phenomenal debut." Daily News (New York)
Review
"A novelistic vision of a life with both hope and heartache to spare." Harper's Bazaar
Review
"A standout." Newsweek
Synopsis
With the startling emotional immediacy of a fractured family photo album, Jennifer Lauck's incandescent memoir is the story of an ordinary girl growing up at the turn of the 1970s and the truly extraordinary circumstances of a childhood lost. Wrenching and unforgettable,
Blackbird will carry your heart away.
To young Jenny, the house on Mary Street was home -- the place where she was loved, a blue-sky world of Barbies, Bewitched, and the Beatles. Even her mother's pain from her mysterious illness could be patted away with powder and a kiss on the cheek. But when everything that Jenny had come to rely on begins to crumble, an odyssey of loss, loneliness, and a child's will to survive takes flight....
About the Author
Jennifer Lauck is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Blackbird and its sequel, Still Waters. She lives with her husband, son, and daughter in Portland, Oregon.