There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

a very unusual, well written and told memoir about a interesting if sometimes horrifying story.
A great read!

Thank you to Sourcebooks for providing me with an advance copy of Kelly Grey Carlisle's memoir, We Are All Shipwrecks, in exchange for an honest review. 

PLOT- When Kelly Grey Carlisle was just three weeks old, she was left by her mother in a hotel room dresser drawer. Carlisle's mother was murdered, her body strangled and dumped in an abandoned lot in Los Angeles. Although it was suspected that her murder was the work of the Hillside Strangler, the case was never solved. 

Carlisle was told that her father was unknown and she was taken in by her eccentric grandfather and his much younger wife, Marilyn. Her grandfather could be loving and jovial, but he could also be angry and verbally abusive. When she was young, Carlisle was treated to fancy clothes and meals out, through money earned from her grandfather's pornography store business. Later in her childhood, money would get tight, as her grandfather decided to pour all available funds into his dream of owning a boat. They ended up living on a boat that was primarily docked in a marina with a group of off-beat and fellow down-on-their-luck neighbors. 

Although Carlisle lived with her grandfather and Marilyn. she honors several adults who took an active interest in her childhood and who helped raise her. We Are All Shipwrecks is a memoir of discovering ones roots, while acknowledging the impact of how you were raised.

LIKE- Carlisle's life is fascinating and heartbreaking. I was most struck by the contradictions and confusions in her life. She sees two very different men in her grandfather; the man who is fun-loving and the man who cuts with his words. She loves Marilyn as if Marilyn was her mother, but is heartbroken to discover Marilyn's alcoholism. She is curious about the porn business, but later realizes that some of the porn that her grandfather sells involves violence towards women. In particular, there are parallels between strangulation porn and her mother dying by strangulation. Carlisle mentions a guilty feeling of knowing that the porn business funded so much of her childhood, such as private schools and material possessions. 

I had a very personal connection to Carlisle's story. Towards the end of her memoir, she talks about being in her twenties and taking the initiative to research her family. She discovers a relative who mentions that Carlisle's mom died in a car accident. My father died in a scandalous way and when I was a teenager, I learned that all of my distant relatives on my father's side thought that he had died in a car accident. It's a misunderstanding that has caused a huge riff amongst my family. I had chills and a burst of anger when I read this part in Carlisle's memoir. Although I was raised by my mom, I can also relate to her desperate need to find out information about her family. I went through similar motions as she did, looking up newspaper articles and latching on to whatever information that I could find in our family records. Information is so precious. I was crushed to read that photographs of her mom and grandmother were destroyed when their boat got wrecked in a storm. 

Beyond having an incredible story, Carlisle's descriptive and emotional writing kept me glued to We Are All Shipwrecks. Her life is filled with many unusual characters and situations that are completely unfamiliar to me. I can't imagine living on a boat. I had no idea that there are places in Los Angeles (my hometown) where there are these floating trailer parks. Carlisle is also only a year older than me, so many aspects of her childhood were familiar.

DISLIKE- Not a single thing. Carlisle's story is unusual and compelling.

RECOMMEND- Yes. I enthusiastically recommend, We Are All Shipwrecks. Carlisle's story is one that I will not soon forget and I loved her overriding message about it taking a village to raise a child. This is a beautiful tribute to her messy childhood and to the people that she has loved.

I don’t read a lot of memoirs, but every once in awhile one will grab my attention. Kelly Grey Carlisle’s We Are All Shipwrecks caught my attention and didn’t let go. Carlisle, a professor of English at Trinity University, has been published in prestigious journals such as Ploughshares and The New England Review, but this is her first book, and she had quite a topic to work with: her childhood.
Carlisle grew up on a boat in the L.A. Harbor with her grandfather and his wife, who made their living from the porn store they ran. She never met her mother, who was strangled when Carlisle was a newborn, or her father, who was in jail at the time. But to singularly define her childhood as eccentric (which it most definitely was) would be a disservice. Perhaps her situation was far from what a lot of people have for childhoods, but she also struggled with many of the things we all do: wanting to please her parents but also wanting to be herself, not fitting in at school, and being embarrassed by her parents. However, the overarching mystery of who killed her mom, and the resulting hardship of being forced to take on too much responsibility at a young age, really drive this memoir, and she delves deep into how that affected her childhood and her future.
At one time or another, we’ve all felt like we don’t belong in our family of origin. It’s just natural, and that is at the heart of this memoir. Not knowing your birth parents, much less how your mother was murdered, would only add to the stress of that, and I could feel how desperately she wanted to learn about them, about her own history. Carlisle wanted to fit into her family more than anything, and it took her many years to realize that instead of forcing herself to fit into a place, she needed to find a place where she fit. She says it beautifully:
“Who you are” also happens after you leave home. You are turning into “who you are” your whole life.
Carlisle drew me into her life, broke my heart, and still managed to leave me with a great feeling of hope for what can be accomplished in a lifetime, against all odds. Happiness and belonging can be found in any life situation, and she is living proof of that. I loved We Are All Shipwrecks, and if you enjoy reading memoirs or mysteries, I really think you will too.

I really enjoyed this book. It was quirky and entertaining but also had a line of mystery running through it that kept me intrigued. I look forward to other contributions from the author, Kelly Carlisle.

*I received an advance reading copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own."

Kelly was always told when she was growing up that where she comes from is what makes her who she is. 

Raised by her grandfather, “Sir Richard,” and his much younger wife, Kelly believed for most of her childhood that her mother had been killed in a car accident. One day, just before a retired police investigator meets her family at a nice restaurant for brunch, she learns that was never true. 

 Kelly’s life is rife with half-truths and mysteries, many of them never completely understood until she was well into adulthood. Some relatives that were once prominent in her life no longer have anything to do with her, while others from her early childhood, not even related to her, keep their relationship for years. Her upbringing was unconventional, although she didn’t realize the degree of its unorthodoxy until she was much older.

Kelly grew up with her grandparents, living on a small houseboat in California. The boat dock was full of other run-down, barely-seaworthy craft inhabited by drug addicts and petty criminals. Numerous cats ran around the boat, Kelly had to know how to work pumps and mechanical equipment, and there was a constant fear of electrical fires. Despite her unease, she still had to get up for school every morning, often wondering if someone would show up to bring her home. She attended a private French school, was introduced to haute cuisine and literature by her grandfather, and yet they often barely had enough money to make repairs to the boat. She was embarrassed wearing her school uniform, worried that it made her look snobby around the almost-homeless people who lived around her.  

 What touched me about Kelly’s memoir is, although we had completely disparate childhoods, her interpretation of her surroundings as a child was very much like mine. She was often afraid of things that were beyond her control: people she loved getting sick, or those people leaving her. She was burdened with feelings of guilt when someone she loved, mainly her grandfather, behaved in ways that made her feel embarrassed or ashamed.  

To add to the confusion and mayhem of growing up on the boat, Kelly’s grandparents’ main source of income came from running a porn store. Her childhood introductions to sex involved images of violence and domination, and her grandfather’s cavalier attitude to discussing inappropriate subjects only added to her bewilderment. The porn store had to be kept a secret from her peers, and she certainly could never bring friends home. The people in her life were unpredictable and often temperamental. Nothing, not even her house, was stable. 

Despite the insecure and seedy environment in which she grew up, Kelly comes to realize that the denizens of the docks took on some of the responsibility of raising her, giving her the advice and love that she needed in their own way. And always lingering in the background was her mom, Kelly wondering about her likes and dislikes, her personality, if she loved her baby. This book was fascinating and tragic, funny and also wretched. Kelly’s story is unusual and insightful, a highly recommended memoir.

My thanks to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for this advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Throughout her stunningly powerful memoir, We Are All Shipwrecks, Kelly Grey Carlisle runs a finger over everything, from the tide pool sea creatures she inspected as a child, to photographs of the mother she never met, to her own newborn daughter. That thoughtful touch revealed dark complexities and provoked her many questions. Such curiosity would become her lifeboat, driving her search for truth and delivering her to the answers she relentlessly sought.

Raised by Richard, her eccentric, self-absorbed grandfather, and his much younger wife Marilyn, on a yacht that “looked something like a three-tiered wedding cake” and required all their money to keep it intact in its berth at a rapidly deteriorating California marina, Carlisle knew little about her mother, a twenty-three year old prostitute brutally murdered by a killer never caught, and even less about her father. Left behind in a motel bureau drawer at three weeks of age, retrieved at four by Richard when his former wife - her grandmother - suddenly died, Carlisle grew up asking many questions and receiving always-changing answers. She and Marilyn endured Richard’s often bizarre behavior. Videos from his porn store introduced her to the many ways men could exploit women, and made her unsure of her own sexuality. Even succeeding as a competitive swimmer in high school meant little at home: Richard simply missed having her there in time for dinner.

It was the good company of her equally unconventional, often down-and-out neighbors living on the pier that sustained Carlisle and fed her desire to move on. Finally, after college, marriage, and the birth of her daughter, Carlisle seems to have found what she was looking for. Richard once told her, “Blood is important. Where you come from is important. It’s who you are.” Yet, clearly, Carlisle’s pursuit of her past is also about whom she chose to become, and what it took to get her there.

We Are All Shipwrecks is such an e grossing read. The author describes her unconventional childhood with her eccentric grandfather who operated an x- rated video store. The family lived on a boat, surrounded by a caring community. Carlisle also discusses her search for answers about her birth parents, neither of which she ever knew. This is a great story of a woman who pieced together conflicting tales of her past to gain a comprehensive picture of the truth.

Sorry, there was no need for this book to be written, but may be of some use to Kelly Grey as a source for self-reflection. As a family, for all the riches, the Greys come across as trailer park.

Kelly's mother was murdered when she was a newborn. She lived first with her grandmother and her grandmother's partner. When her grandmother died, she was moved to the home of her grandfather and much younger wife. Her grandfather ran a porn store and eventually moved his family to a boat. Here, she grew up among a variety of eccentric characters.

I thought the first half of the book was well written and interesting. Her life and realizations about her family were both quirky and entertaining. The second half of the book read more like a therapy exercise as she began analyzing. I wish the second half of the book had been more carefully edited, as large sections could have been removed. Overall, a bust.

a fascinating memoir searing with honesty from page to page.

“Who killed her? No one really knew. My grandfather had explained this to me. How had she been killed? I knew that too. She’d been strangled. Why she’d been killed didn’t seem as important, and who could answer that question anyway? Why did people die? They just did. People died all the time. Other questions seemed excessive, nosy- like the people that slowed down to stare at crashes on the 405.”

This memoir is not just simply about the tragic murder of Kelly’s mother Michele Ann Grey, when Kelly was a baby, left behind in a drawer. It is the background noise of a complicated, unique upbringing. Today, it’s not that unusual to encounter children being raised by their grandparents, but decades ago it wasn’t so much the norm. When her grandmother passes away, Kelly ends up under the roof of her grandfather Richard and his much younger wife Marilyn. “Sir Richard, that is.” Much of the survival funded through a porn store the couple owns, that mustn’t ever be mentioned to others, Kelly was surrounded by content she wasn’t ready for. If early exposure to sexual images aren’t enough to confuse a young girl, moving into a houseboat surrounded by misfits, prostitutes and drug addicts certainly is. With a grandfather that loves his ‘Little Toad’, there is more hidden about her family history than she feels free to uncover. Told for years her mother died in a car crash, she discovers that just isn’t so. Who was her father? Nobody worth mentioning, if you ask her grandfather, just some jailhouse trash, if he even was her father. Her grandfather was a character, some people just are, but those who live with them aren’t always delighted and charmed- sometimes swallowed up in shadow instead.

Her family history is scattered to the winds, half truths- half lies. Why does her grandpa have few pictures of her mother? Why is he so bitter and hateful about her deceased grandmother, Spence? The things he tells are brutal to little ears, from sexual stories and jokes to hateful comments. Bitter with disgust for his ex-wife and her ‘friend’, trying to stain the fond memories she has of both, Kelly is thrown into confusion about love. Seesawing between giving her the best, such as making sure she attends top schools, to exposing her to the worst. Forcing his way of life on his wife and child, his nature wasn’t one to ask for approval before making life changing decisions for everyone. Some call it willfulness, others controlling. Did Spence’s secrets drive her mother to her brutal ending? Could her life choices really have caused her mother Michele to run, or was it Richard’s absence? Is Richard to blame for the way her mother turned out? Just where can Kelly point her finger? Just who did murder her mother, could she have been an early victim of the Hillside Stranglers? Or was she a victim of terrible parents?

Her family is abnormal compared to fellow students. Where they have calm adoring homes, beautiful clothes, popular perky friends, Kelly is stuck feeling frumpy, alien to the youth she should understand. She doesn’t listen to the right music, she is a throwback more invested in old shows and movies than in what’s the hot current trends. Other girls don’t have to care for elderly fathers, nor carry the dark mystery of death deep in their hungry hearts. They are sheltered from the filthy things men do to women, at least for now. They don’t yet have to navigate the world full of deviant acts.

Growing up with missing pieces makes for much struggle. As her grandfather ages, he becomes less the adoring, fun-loving grandpa he once was. Marilyn is the only mother Kelly has ever known, and the pain of watching the once beautiful younger woman become a worn out, faded shadow of her former self because of her grandpa’s demanding, often cruel nature is a difficult reality to stomach. Through the years, becoming more of a caretaker for her grandfather she finds solace in swimming, but must fight the jealousy he feels when anything takes attention away from his needs. Much of Kelly’s existence is wrought with conflicting emotions. Sir Richard is the only father she has known, and he has done the best he could. There was love, there are fond memories that peek out much like the sun in a storm.

Will she make it out of this seedy place, living along the water with unfortunate people, on a boat that is falling into disrepair? Could she rise above the bleak existence her mother knew in her final years? Will she ever know the truth about anything in her life? How can she become a strong woman with her grandfather and Marilyn as the sole examples of love? Can she see beauty with a grandfather that immediately colors the world ugly, suspect of every situation, always thinking with his mind in a gutter? Will she sail off into the unknown and finally find a life for herself? Will the thickness of blood keep her moored where she doesn’t want to be?

This memoir is a painful peeling of many layers. None of us are ‘normal’, we all carry the weight of unmentionable tragedies. Kelly’s just happens float inside a fog of mystery. A heart-breaking, sometimes funny, fascinating memoir.

Publication Date: September 5, 2017

Sourcebooks

In her memoir, Kelly recounts her very unconventional childhood. Found in a motel room dresser drawer by the detective working her mothers murder, the infant Kelly is placed with first one, then another set of grandparents. Her formative years are spent with her grandfather and his wife, whom Kelly will call “mom”. Her grandfather tells glorious tales of his past, as a war hero, a member of the British peerage and a concentration camp survivor. In his current life, his money comes from the porn star he owns. Kelly and her grandparents move from a regular home to a huge old boat anchored at a marina filled with people society has forgotten about, the sick, the disabled or those running from the law. Her unconventional childhood is filled with both joy and despair as she lives a life unlike any of her schoolmates. As she matures, Kelly begins to understand the dynamics between her grandparents and becomes to determined to find out who really killed her mother and ends up looking into one of the most notorious serial killer cases in history. I was torn between feeling sorry for Kelly and envying her. A compelling read