The Story of Bug: A Memoir of Resilience

Book excerpt: The Story of Bug is a rich, evocative memoir about growing up in southern West Virginia, where the author's dramatic, mercurial mother's violent outbursts keep her family on edge. As a young child, Bug longs for love from the one woman who means the most to her. She feels her aching heart is being kept on a leash, tied to the mother she never really knows. A plucky, imaginative and resilient little girl, Bug defends the weak, cares for the wounded, and faces down danger. As she watches her mother peel back layers of rage, the warring between her parents increases. Finding herself in the unique position of having to parent her parents. Bug learns to care for herself as she monitors the violence and her mother's downward spiral. Written after the deaths of her parents, this moving memoir reckons with the author's difficult past and is an act of both resurrection and reconciliation.