Domestic abuse is not a pretty thing and mostly it’s kept well-hidden from view. But Pushcart-nominated poet, Alice Anderson, in her new memoir, Some Bright Morning, I'll Fly Away: A Memoir, describes it in all its ugliness.

Married to the Chief Medical Director of a small gulf-coast hospital, Anderson gave up her career as a writer to create a contemporary house fit for a town leader and to raise their three children.

Then Katrina hit. It’s hard to know from the book whether her husband, Liam, had abusive tendencies before the storm blew through their lives, but I suspect so. With the stress of a natural disaster came his spiraling mental state that eventually led to an attack on the author at knifepoint. She was saved only by the voice of her then three-year-old son.

What follows is Anderson’s description of all the horror, the helplessness, fear, and the emotional, psychological, spiritual struggle for redemption. Ultimately, as abused mothers have from time immemorial, she focuses on the preservation and welfare of her children to find her way out of the storm and reclaim her identity.

Anderson’s prose scorches the page. We see her as a scrappy fighter totally unprepared for the corruption of high-powered southern lawyers, the inherent discrimination against women, and the rigged judicial system of southern courts. She battles them all in her fight for custody of their children.

The writing is top-notch. Anderson, the poet, shines through, and the story is a house on fire page-turner.

There were things I felt were missing. How Anderson got into the situation with an abusive husband is not fleshed out. We see her dashing husband as a college graduate then descend almost immediately into a physical attack after Hurricane Katrina. Were there signs before? The closest Anderson comes to accepting her role in that dynamic is when she writes, “Abuse doesn’t arrive with a neon light. A neon light flashing DIRTY, UGLY, DIRTY, UGLY. Instead, abuse comes in an exquisitely carved box, a boxful of secrets I thought (as every abuse victim does) only I was equipped enough—special enough—to acquire, to transform.” But that introspection is not developed.

I would also have liked more detail on the head injury that caused her to lose her ability to speak and the grueling ordeal of rehab that must have occurred. It is referred to obliquely toward the end of the book, but perhaps that is for a future memoir.

All nitpicking aside, the memoir is told in a race-to-the-finish voice that presses the reader to catch up with Anderson and her remarkable life.

This book was very good. The author went through a lot and it was amazing to follow this couple from their first meeting, to dating to marriage. She also included here growing up and one cannot say that Ms. Anderson did not have a good life. But she made the best of it. And I for one admire here never give up attitude. I also admire her honestly and strength. I do not think she set out to make Liam (the man she married) bad, she just gave it to you straight no chaser and you decide how you feel about things. Yes, this was a hard book to read, but a worthwhile read. Blessings to you Ms. Anderson, I wish you well in all that you do. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away

A Memoir
by Alice Anderson

St. Martin’s Press

Biographies & Memoirs

Pub Date 29 Aug 2017

I am reviewing a copy of Some Bright Morning I’ll Fly Away through St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley:

Alice Anderson returns home Post Katrina to find out the damage that was done to her beloved Mississippi Coastline and the once immaculate home she had shared with her husband Dr. Liam Rivers and their three children. Liam is the highly respected chief of medicine, whereas Alice left behind a writing career in New York as well as a modeling career in Paris. But Liam’s mental health is spiraling, even attacking her at knifepoint, she is saved by her three year old Son. The author has no choice but to flee but not without a battle.

Liam makes it his mission to do everything in his power to make Alice look like she was at fault, hiring pi’s to stalk her.

In this book, the author not only deals with the effects of Katrina, but a battle against high-powered southern attorneys who refuse to believe the facts about Liam and the abuse Alice and her children had to endure.

I give Some Bright Morning I’ll Fly Away five out of five stars.

Happy Reading!

No official review for this book as a stopped reading it at 25%. Thank you for the opportunity to review a galley.

I read this book in one sitting. Just about every horrible nightmarish thing that can occur, happened to the author. From molestation to medical issues, from horrible relationships to endlessly battling her lunatic ex in court, she has seen it all. Alice Anderson personifies perseverance. Her memoir is heartbreaking and riveting to read.

From her words in the prologue, “We make chapels of our scars. They cross our skin and soul, a topographic map of the past. Our scars are built on the delicate yet dazzling scaffolding holding our weary, ragtag hearts aloft…” Alice Anderson’s memoir, Some Bright Morning I’ll Fly Away mesmerizes. Anderson has the voice of a poet (and in fact, she is an award winning one), the heart of a goddess (at least one, The Great Mother, and maybe a few more – fiercely protective Kali, beautiful Aphrodite, lost in the underworld Persephone) and the soul of a warrior. Anderson’s memoir begins in the aftermath of The Storm, aka Hurricane Katrina, when her husband tries to kill her. She is saved by her young son, and together she and her three children survive a marathon of abuse from her ex-husband, the courts, and Child Protective Services, who do anything but protect the children. Anderson is candid about being molested as a child by her father. Her secrets, that she has to keep from the courts or risk losing her precious children to a lifetime of abuse at the hands of their father, are her love for women, a relationship with John Buffalo Mailer, and most unsettling, a seizure disorder that she developed subsequent to being almost choked to death by her husband. The oxygen deprivation and brain damage culminated in a grand mal seizure that ruptured both her eye sockets and resulted in a traumatic brain injury, axonal shearing similar to “shaken baby syndrome.” Anderson rehabilitates herself, with the help of her children and by watching Gabby Giffords rehab on YouTube, teaching herself how to walk, speak, read and write again. As a trauma therapist, I am blown away by Anderson’s grace, grit, guts and glory.
I can only say the Buddhist Metta (Lovingkindness) Prayer for Anderson and her children, Avery, Grayson and Aidan:
May they be happy.
May they be well.
May they be peaceful.
May they be free.