A Brother's Journey : Surviving a Childhood of Abuse - Hardcover

Richard B Pelzer

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6,648 ratings by Goodreads

9780316727327: A Brother's Journey : Surviving a Childhood of Abuse

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316727326 ISBN 13: 9780316727327

Publisher: Little Brown & Co, 2005

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The story of Dave Pelzer is a legend of our times: the shattering tale of the child called 'It' who was forced to live in the basement. His mother was the perpetrator of the horror, but she had a willing accomplice. It was Dave's brother Richard - the author of this book. When Dave was twelve the police removed him from the household, but the cycle of abuse continued. Mrs Pelzer had a new target for her crazed, alcoholic wrath. The hunter became the hunted - at the age of nine. This is his story. Recounting the warped dynamics of a family riven by abuse, he reveals his guilt at being the abuser, his scarring at being abused, the complete lack of questioning within the family about what was happening - and even the twisted respect the boys had for their mother. Richard became the target of his mother's artillery of insanity, the victim of savage beatings leading to hospitalization, the boy denied clean clothes, the one who 'deserved' whole bottles of hot Tabasco sauce poured down his throat.

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About the Author:

Richard Pelzer is the brother of Dave Pelzer, author of A CHILD CALLED IT etc. Richard was born fourth of five boys in 1965 in California. Until recently he worked in banking and the financial world. He is now a full-time writer.

From AudioFile:

Although not meant to be a horror story, the chilling descriptions of the author's childhood abuse by his mother could be mistaken for those of a Stephen King novel. The woman beat the children, stabbed them with a kitchen knife, made them eat their vomit from the floor, and called the youngest son, David, "It." Joshua Gates's mean tone for the drunken woman's tirades jumps out like a monster from the dark. However, he mollifies the disgusting acts with a soft voice that makes hearing about them tolerable. These clever inflectional changes allow listeners to both hate the mother and suffer for the children. The taciturn pitch used for the abused boy's thoughts sounds dominated and terrified. A maturation of the boy's character at the denouement scores a partial victory for good. J.A.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright � AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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