BRITAIN
Guardian
Simon Hoggart
Saturday March 12, 2005
The Guardian
· I was looking through the Bookseller list of bestselling books the other day, and grim reading it makes. Take the hardbacks: at number 1, The Little Prisoner, by Jane Elliott, described as the story of a girl abused from the age of four by her stepfather. At 3, A Brother's Journey by Richard B. Pelzer. Dave's younger brother tells of his side of the story of childhood abuse. At 4 is Rock Me Gently by Judith Kelly, the memoir of a miserable upbringing in a Catholic orphanage.
Perhaps the paperbacks will be a little more cheery - after all, they're what people take on holidays. They don't want more unhappiness, surely? Apparently they do. At 2, One Child by Torey Hayden. Educational psychologist helps an abused child back to life. At 3, Sickened, by Julie Gregory. Account of being raised by a mother with Munchausen's syndrome by proxy. At 5, Just A Boy, by Richard McCann. Son of the Yorkshire Ripper's first victim recounts his traumatic childhood. Next, two by the doyen of abusive childhoods, Dave Pelzer. At 6, The Privilege of Youth ("traumatic life story reaches teenage years and bullying at high school") and at 7, Pelzer's My Story - three volumes of tormented youth in one edition. And coming in at 8, To Die For by Carol Lee - autobiography telling of a young woman's battle with anorexia.
Posted by kshaw at March 20, 2005 05:32 AM