We Are All Shipwrecks: A Memoir

(Paperback)

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A captivating memoir of one woman's extraordinary upbringing and her search for redemption in the face of staggering tragedy. Sometimes family are the strangers who love you When Kelly was three weeks old, her mother lay her in a dresser drawer in a motel room in Hollywood and went out into the night. She never returned. Her strangled body was found the next morning on a hillside in LA. Raised by her eccentric grandfather on a boat in LA Harbor, Kelly couldn't help wondering how her life might have been different if her mother had lived. Every day at their rundown marina was an adventure, sometimes fun, sometimes dangerous, but always profoundly strange. Kelly longed for a normal life and for answers to her questions- who was her mother, exactly, and who had killed her Her search for answers-and for a normal life-would lead her back to that night, that motel room, and the mother she never knew. We Are All Shipwrecks is Kelly's story of redemption from tragedy, told with a tenderness toward her family that makes it as much about preserving the strings that anchor her as it is about breaking free.

Reviews

"Every so often a book arrives that slaps you like an incoming wave. Powerful, briny and brimming with the flotsam and jetsam of an uncommon life, We Are All Shipwrecks is a dazzling debut. " - The Dallas Morning News
"Readers who appreciate thoughtful memoirs will be charmed by Carlisle's generosity and easy, open reflections...a wise, contemplative, forgiving memoir by a likable narrator.

" - Shelf Awareness, STARRED review

"Stunningly powerful memoir..." - BookPage
"We Are All Shipwrecks is a memoir about being adrift and lost on a boat, but also about discovering that we're all more or less adrift, that yearning is a universal condition...readers who appreciate thoughtful memoirs will be charmed by Carlisle's generosity and easy, open reflections...a wise, contemplative, forgiving memoir by a likable narrator.

" - Shelf Awareness

"Rich and complex memoir... Carlisle captivates the reader in this tender, warts-and-all narrative of her attempt to unravel her mother's murder and of the man who helped to create an adventurous, if confusing, childhood for her." - Publishers Weekly
"Although the initial intrigue in Carlisle's engrossing memoir is that of her mother's murder, quite possibly by the Hillside Strangler, the real story is what came after...Carlisle writes from her current perspective, questioning the implications of a life marked by death from the start and exploring how the adults in her life...shaped who she was and who she became."

" - Booklist

"A turbulent childhood is accurately rendered in this gritty, raw memoir of Carlisle's family and her search for the truth about her mother's death." - Kirkus
" A squalid and decadent childhood is accurately rendered in this gritty, raw memoir of Carlisle's family and her search for the truth about her mother's death." - Kirkus
"Moving and complex, this is an exquisitely written tale of perseverance and unconditional love.
" - Library Journal, STARRED review
"A stunning piece of work - a wrenching, beautiful exploration of the author's struggle to solve the mystery of her mother's murder.
" - Fourth Genre

Author Bio

KELLY CARLISLE's personal essays have appeared in the New England Review, Salon.com, Ploughshares, and more. She has a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska and lives with her family in Texas, where she is an assistant professor at Trinity University. Follow her on Twitter @ProfKGC.