The Taste of Anger: A Memoir

(Paperback)

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Description

Ill kill the first person who comes through this door. My father grips a baseball bat in his meaty hands.

It is 1962 and Diane is three years old when her violent father moves their familyher, her pregnant mother, and her six siblingsto a remote farm in Upstate New York. There, she grabs the reader by the hand and takes them to the broken-down barns, barren fields, and rows of bunk beds in her rat-infested attic bedroom as she questions all that feels wrong about her new world. She watches her ever-pregnant mother grow emotionally colder with each new baby and wonders, Where is she when he swings his fists, his steel-toed boot, or a crowbar Forced to perform adult manual labor in between the erratic beatings she and her siblings pound on one another to release their own aggressions, she asks herself, Is this what weve become What Ive become

Narrated in the ever-hopeful voice of a child, The Taste of Anger explores in raw, unflinching detail how years of isolation, oppression, and the threat of retaliation create an environment in which family secrets are guarded at all costs. Tension is palpable with the turning of each page, ensuring that the reader wont let go of Dianes hand until she gets an answer to her most urgent question of all: Who will rescue us

Reviews

"Powerful and gripping, A Taste of Anger is like a car wreck you can't look away from. The narrative opens with a tension that doesn't subside until the very last paragraph. This is a distinct and original work that refreshingly offers a straight narrative without excuse or analysis."

--The BookLife Prize

"This is a memoir with a brilliant narrative, studded with a host of images that will remain with me for a long time. . . . there is the indomitableness of the spirit."
--Clem Cairns, founder of Fish Publishing

Author Bio

Diane Vonglis Parnell grew up on a remote farm in Western New York with nine siblings. Her essay Blame the Milkman was a winner in the Fish Publishing short memoir contest, and included in the Fish Anthology 2022. Vonglis Parnell is a Scrabble enthusiast and a lover of progressive rock music. She serves as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer for abused children in her community and lives a minimalist's life in a 200-square-foot cottage in San Luis Obispo, California.