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Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 · rating details · 219 ratings · 55 reviews

Her mother was a brainy knockout with the sultry beauty of Marilyn Monroe, a raconteur whose fierce wit could shock an audience into hilarity or silence. Her father was a distinguished figure in American letters, the National Book Award-winning author of four of the greatest novels of World War II ever written. A daughter of privilege with a seemingly fairy-tale-like life,...more Her mother was a brainy knockout with the sultry beauty of Marilyn Monroe, a raconteur whose fierce wit could shock an audience into hilarity or silence. Her father was a distinguished figure in American letters, the National Book Award-winning author of four of the greatest novels of World War II ever written. A daughter of privilege with a seemingly fairy-tale-like life, Kaylie Jones was raised in the Hamptons via France in the 1960s and '70s, surrounded by the glitterati who orbited her famous father, James Jones. Legendary for their hospitality, her handsome, celebrated parents held court in their home around an antique bar--an eighteenth-century wooden pulpit taken from a French village church--playing host to writers, actors, movie stars, film directors, socialites, diplomats, an emperor, and even the occasional spy. Kaylie grew up amid such family friends as William Styron, Irwin Shaw, James Baldwin, and Willie Morris, and socialized with the likes of Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Her beloved father showed young Kaylie the value of humility, hard work, and education, with its power to overcome ignorance, intolerance, and narrow-mindedness, and instilled in her a love of books and knowledge. From her mother, Gloria, she learned perfect posture, the twist, the fear of abandonment, and soul-shattering cruelty. Two constants defined Kaylie's childhood: literature and alcohol. "Only one word was whispered in the house, as if it were the worst insult you could call someone," she writes, "alcoholic was a word my parents reserved for the most appalling and shameful cases--drunks who made public scenes or tried to kill themselves or ended up in the street or in an institution. If you could hold your liquor and go to work, you were definitely not an alcoholic."

When her father died from heart failure complicated by years of drinking, sixteen-year-old Kaylie was broken and lost. For solace she turned to his work, looking beyond the man she worshipped to discover the artist and his craft, determined that she too would write. Her loss also left her powerless to withstand her mother's withering barbs and shattering criticism, or halt Gloria's further descent into a bottle--one of the few things mother and daughter shared. From adolescence, Kaylie too used drink as a refuge, a way to anesthetize her sadness, anger, and terror. For years after her father's death, she denied the blackouts, the hangovers, the lost days, the rage, the depression. Broken and bereft, she began reading her father's novels and those writers who came before and after him--and also pursued her own writing. With this, she found the courage to open the door on the truth of her own addiction.

"Lies My Mother Never Told Me" is the mesmerizing and luminously told story of Kaylie's battle with alcoholism and her struggle to flourish despite the looming shadow of a famous father and an emotionally abusive and damaged mother. Deeply intimate, brutally honest, yet limned by humor and grace, it is a beautifully written tale of personal evolution, family secrets, second chances, and one determined woman's journey to find her own voice--and the courage to embrace a life filled with possibility, strength, and love.(less)

Hardcover, 384 pages

Published August 25th 2009 by William Morrow & Company (first published August 18th 2009)

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Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

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Sep 15, 2011 Karol rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Kaylie Jones's chapter, City of Lights, an excerpt of her memoir published in Epiphany, was named a notable essay in the Best American Essays 2010. It is a powerful, moving, and dryly funny story about coming of age in Paris with a knockout mother and a famous father, James Jones, author of the Thin Red Line and National Book Award-winner From Here to Eternity. It is a touching memoir that Vogue named as one of the seasons best in the fall of 2009. One of the most poignant scenes is when the aut...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

The problem is that obviously you can't help someone who doesn't recognize they have a problem and others around them think there isn't a problem. It was until Kaylie realized her own drinking is out of hand and she admits she is an alcoholic that she recognizes her mothers problem. Kaylie really struggles with the criticism she gets from her mom and she is really stifled in her own life because she dreads what she's going to get from her mom because of it.

My favorite passage of the whole book...more The problem is that obviously you can't help someone who doesn't recognize they have a problem and others around them think there isn't a problem. It was until Kaylie realized her own drinking is out of hand and she admits she is an alcoholic that she recognizes her mothers problem. Kaylie really struggles with the criticism she gets from her mom and she is really stifled in her own life because she dreads what she's going to get from her mom because of it.

My favorite passage of the whole book was: "We cathect an object narcissistically..when we experience it not as the center of its own activity but as a part of ourselves. If the object does not behave as we expect or wish, we may at times be immeasurably disappointed or offended." In my mind, I could hear my mother saying "How can you listen to such shit? You have no taste in music." My mother could never say "I don't like strawberries". For her, it was always, "How could you eat strawberries? They are the most disgusting fruit in the world." A parent suffering from narcissistic disturbances sees her child only as a mirror image of herself.... What these mothers had once failed to find in their own mothers they were able to find in their children: someone at their disposal who can be used as an echo, who can be controlled, is completely centered on them, will never desert them, and offers full attention and admiration. But , of course, a child cannot help but be a child. A child grows fussy, sometimes rejecting, sometimes demanding, easily exhausted, and exhausting. My mother had no patience for any of this. She adored me - as she was quick to announce - but she could only tolerate my presence in very small doses."

I had to stop reading for two days just to take it in and digest that. It rocked my world. I couldn't believe that this is normal, really, and that there is a name for it. To turn the personal table around- my mom was one of six kids, she was the only daughter. Her mother made it very clear that she did not like my mom. At all. It's really a bizarre feeling and I can't imagine what my mom felt like. The boys were adored but my mom was treated like a slave. She is very close to her father, probably because her mother abandoned the family when the youngest boys, twins, were only two. My mom had to step into role as care taker for everyone. Growing up my mom assumed this was normal until she had my brother and I and realized it had nothing to do with my mom. It was her mother who had the problem.

My mom and I have had a pretty good relationship for the most part. There have been times where I felt I was treated unfairly simply because I was the oldest and I was a girl. She wanted me to do big things with my life because I was a girl and she knew I'd face adversity simply because of what I was. And I'm glad she pushed me. But growing up, I can say I felt like anything I did wasn't really important. My parents were never the help-at-school type, take our friends to fun things, etc. It was a miracle I was ever able to have sleepovers. At the time I was angry but now I get it. It's just not who they are. I have made some decisions as an adult that my mom disagreed with me on and made it very clear I was making a huge mistake. There have been times where I felt like maybe there was something wrong with me. But as god as my witness- my mom is awesome. I love her to the moon and back and I have no right to complain because I know she did the best she could for us. And still does.

And let's turn it around as me as a parent. I struggle. I'm not even going to lie. I love both of my kids equally but I feel more of a connection to Jackson. Is it because I suffered post partum depression after Olivia for her entire first year? I didn't really bond with her for the first year of her life- I was mostly crying and praying I could make it all stop. Is it because I was going through a rough time in my marriage while pregnant to Jackson? I clung to that baby like he was my lifeline. I don't know. But I know that each and every day I struggle. The non stop crying, the arguing, the fighting over the blue marker when we have 6 others on the table, the fact I never get to sit down and be old Sara? All of it plus more makes me think MAYBE I wasn't meant to be a mom. THIS is the stuff they should tell you. You should have to go through a rigorous testing to be able to have a baby. It's serious and the demands put on you are like no other. Make no mistake- one baby is easy. EASY. Put more than one kid in the mix and suddenly everything is a battle. It's hard and god help me, I don't know if I would do it again. And that? Terrifies me. And keeps me up some nights. I don't know what that makes me but I know I try to be the absolute best mom I can be. Because they deserve it.

I could go for HOURS on this but I won't. I want you to get this book. If you've ever had a relationship with a parent that has been strained- please, please, please read this book. It will help you more than you know.(less)

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Feb 26, 2012 Timothy Bazzett rated it 4 of 5 stars

My first exposure to Kaylie Jones came years ago with her very autobiographical novel, A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES, which I liked very much. And which was made into quite a successful Hollywood film. As the daughter of writer James Jones (whose first novel, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, firmly established him in the early 1950s as an important writer of his generation), Kaylie Jones enjoyed a rather privileged childhood in the rarefied international literary community of Paris in the 1960s. Her me...more My first exposure to Kaylie Jones came years ago with her very autobiographical novel, A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES, which I liked very much. And which was made into quite a successful Hollywood film. As the daughter of writer James Jones (whose first novel, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, firmly established him in the early 1950s as an important writer of his generation), Kaylie Jones enjoyed a rather privileged childhood in the rarefied international literary community of Paris in the 1960s. Her memoir, LIES MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME, finally reveals how seriously this childhood and youth were marred by parents who were alcoholics and somewhat negligent in their parental duties. Jones's mother Gloria was perhaps most guilty in that she seemed simply incapable of exressing her love for her daughter. The author recognizes, years later, that this failing in Gloria was probably the result of neglect and abuse at the hands of her own mother, who she said she "hated." The other tragedy of Kaylie's life was the death of her famous father when she was only sixteen.

The memoir is something of a tell-all, filled with names of the rich and famous from the celebrity world of the time. For example, she tells of her father's friend William Styron propositioning her, noting that "... if my father had known that Bill was going to proposition his nineteen-year-old, grief-stricken daughter, he would have beaten the living s**t out of him, sick or not." This anecdote seems to confirm the story that Anne Roiphe told of her own affair with the long-married and famously philandering Styron in her memoir, ART & MADNESS.

In yet another story, Kaylie tells of meeting her father's high school sweetheart, Annis Flemming, during a visit to Robinson, Illinois, who described the young James Jones as "a gentle, fragile boy ... He was a bit of a show-off, but that's not really who he was inside. He was hurting so bad when he came back after the war ... All the boys were like that when they came back." This assessment seems to parallel certain contradictory descriptions of a young Hemingway after the the Great War. Gertrude Stein often commented that Hemingway's macho displays of bravado were an act to mask his sensitive side. (Read Lyle Larsen's STEIN & HEMINGWAY.)

I had mixed feelings about this memoir. When she talks of her father and their special relationship, the book is at its best. In the second half (or more) of the book, when she begins to speak of her problems with her unloving - and unlovable -alcoholic mother, and then her own alcoholism and subsequent reform,the narrative sometimes slips into self-pity and becomes tediously repetitious. There is much of the proud mother in the author when she speaks of her daughter Eyrna, as well as pride of accomplishment in her struggles to earn her black belt. But the name-dropping later seems to become more obvious and unnecessary, slowing the pace of the book. For example, I wondered if it was really necessary, for example, in describing her father's friendship with Willie Morris, to mention that Donna Tartt and John Grisham had been students of Morris at Mississippi. And there are other similar name-dropping digressions scattered throughout the book - Winston Groom, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Frank Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, etc. Being an avid reader and filmgoer, some I found interesting, but not all.

There were also, however, very poignant moments which made me nearly weep, such as her sadness at watching her mother's gradual deterioration which included memory loss. I remembered my own mother describing how her mother (my grandmother) always loved to talk of the past, until one day, in her early 90s, she began to forget. My mother is 95 now, and I see it happening to her.

But as a booklover and memoirist, the passage that struck home the hardest with me was a comment Jones made as she looked over the personal bookshelves of Willie Morris the day of his funeral -

"My eyes drifted over the contents of Willie's study - books I did not know and photos of strangers. Never mind, I thought, Willie wrote it all down in his memoirs, and ... the books will endure. And we will always have Bill Styron's books, and Truman Capote's, and Faulkner's, and Tolstoy's books, and my father's books, and those, no matter what else, will always be worth fighting for."

Books. They are indeed so important. I hope she is right. "The books will endure."

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER(less)

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May 26, 2010 Jane Hammons rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction-memoir

This is a fascinating book about Kaylie Jones's struggle with alcoholism and with two alcoholic parents: one James Jones, a famous writer; the other, Gloria Jones--beautiful, vivacious and cruel. One of the things I appreciate about this book is the clarity and honesty of Jones's voice. Given that she grew up in Paris and New York and was often in the company of William Styron, Norman Mailer, and other actors and celebrities, it must have been tempting to make that the substance of the book. But...more

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Sep 20, 2009 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

Book Overview

To say Kaylie Jones grew up in an interesting household is an understatement. Her father was James Jones—the acclaimed novelist renowned for his WWII books, including From Here To Eternity and The Thin Red Line (both made into movies). Her mother Gloria was a beauty (she was Marilyn Monroe's stand-in for a movie once) and a quick-witted storyteller who was both brainy and bawdy. (Some of her mother's best stories are interspersed throughout the book and make for some very interestin...more

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Sep 11, 2010 Lydia Presley rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, memoirs, non-fiction

Memoirs seem to be hit and miss for me this year. When offered the opportunity to read Lies My Mother Never Told Me I jumped on it because, honestly, the title is great and it looked interesting. My mistake was not looking to see who it was about.

Normally this wouldn't be a big deal. Most memoirs I read are about people I've never been "introduced" to. That's the whole point of a memoir, right? Getting to know someone. It was different in this book though. Because Kaylie Jones is the daughter of...more

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Sep 17, 2010 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From my book review blog Rundpinne.

3.5 stars

"Witty, heart wrenching and redemptive, Lies My Mother Never Told Me is a straightforward, raw and emotional look into the life of Kaylie Jones and her lifelong process of healing and coming into her own. Jones grew up surrounded by talented, well-educated and famous people, her father James Jones was among them, whose novels are known worldwide. Kaylie writes about her life from her childhood in Paris to present day with a dry wit and charm. At time...more

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May 13, 2012 Joanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs

Why do I keep on reading these memoirs written by the not so famous offspring of famous writers when most are basically the same story? Story line: famous father writer (in this case James Jones) drinks excessively as does the wife/mother causing many family "incidents" making for good famous father writer memoir material; famous father writer spends hours and hours struggling to come up with the next great novel but often fails; famous father writer has many famous writer friends and spends a l...more

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Feb 16, 2010 Luciana Herman rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was one of those books that I couldn't put down and not just because it's a memoir. The book does start out slowly as Jones excavates her past and remembers her father, James Jones. Once she starts getting into her battle with alcoholism and her relationship with her mother, the memoir begins to shine. My favorite chapter was the one about hope, because it's hard to believe that Jones could ever pull herself together enough to not only survive, but to come out her ordeals an enlightened, po...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Cindy Cunningham rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, cnf

So far I am interested. I have read the part about her father with a fair amount of interest (her father was famous author), but I am ready to get more details on HER life....

Ok...this book was written by a friend of one of my good friends....but I gotta say, I would NOT call it a memoir. Memoir brings with it a literary feel; a book that is well written and meaningful. This book is highly repetitive and filled with gratuitous name dropping...I pushed through to the end just to see if it improve...more

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Jan 23, 2010 Vilo rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a memoir of a woman who finally realizes she is an alcoholic and that alcohol and emotional abuse are central features of the family she grew up in. At least half the book is devoted to the journey of complete recovery--beautifully describing finding God and developing enough self confidence (partly through tae kwon do) to be at peace. One thing I really loved was finding out how many people contributed to the author's well being--how powerful we can be when extending a loving, honest fr...more

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Apr 04, 2012 Dale Stonehouse rated it 4 of 5 stars

The one thing that prevented this from 5 stars is my own personal dislike of overly codependent behavior. The only thing I knew about the Jones family was that her father James wrote From Here to Eternity and Some Came Running, both of which were made into interesting Hollywood productions. What I learned is that James Jones wrote these based on his own experience, that he hated war and killing with great passion, and before there was a diagnostic basis, he suffered from PTSD. He died of heart d...more

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Apr 25, 2010 Nette rated it 2 of 5 stars

A good read in a weird, twisted way. I ended up rooting for the author's alcoholic "monster" of a mother, who was way more intriguing and funny than her self-righteous pill of a daughter. The daughter who, by the way, accepted lots of money from her awful mom, had no compunction about living (as an adult) in mom's houses and apartments, and who left her own tiny daughter with her mom whenever she needed a babysitter (and who snatched her away only when her daughter started getting "fat" when gra...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Eliza Fayle rated it 2 of 5 stars

Kaylie’s father, author of From Here To Eternity James Jones, told Kaylie that her mother never lied. Kaylie trusted and believed her dad. Unfortunately, this meant Kaylie grew up believing the vicious ‘truths’ her mother, Gloria, told her.

You have no sense of humor.
You’re a klutz.
You have ugly legs.
You’re a nut.
You’re a whore.

Lies My Mother Never Told Me chronicles Kaylie’s life growing up amongst the literary elite. It also chronicles her life growing up amongst alcoholics, her mother one of t...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have never felt the need to read a memoir, but there was something about the girl on the cover with her adorable wool coat....

Kaylie Jones is the daughter of WWII author James Jones. Her childhood was a life of watching beautiful people like Lauren Bacall, Willie Morris and Norman Mailer sip cocktails at her parents parties until the sun came up. Her memoir doesn't search for answers, she doesn't blame her parents or resent them while telling her own story either. It is simply a beautifully wr...more

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May 02, 2010 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I probably shouldn't have read this book about an alcoholic and emotional abusive mother during Mother's Day week. Kaylie Jones is the daughter of James Jones, the author of From Here to Eternity, who dies when she is 16 years old. It turns out that in their terrible relationship, one of the few things that Kaylie has in common with her mother, Gloria, is alcoholism. Kaylie comes to term with her alcoholism and wants her mother to stop drinking. Doesn't work. I think that this memoir would be mo...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Mardel Fehrenbach rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kaylie Jones memoir, Lies my Mother Never told Me left me stunned.

In fact, it took me a little while to warm up to the book and at one point I was wondering why I was reading as the early sections seemed to be in danger of becoming just another “child of celebrity” writing about the dark underbelly of life with famous drunks. It was not that it was badly written; Jones’ direct style and sometimes shockingly spare prose serves the material well. The book is often moving and is filled with moment...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Will Byrnes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, biography-autobiography-memoir

Kaylie Jones has written a crying-from-laughter, weeping-from-sadness, can’t-put-it-down, through-a shot-glass-darkly memoir about growing up the child of literary giant James Jones. Her father’s WW II classics brought in enough income to allow the family a life of physical comfort. But alcoholism is quite resistant to a greenback cure, and both of Kaylie’s parents were afflicted, a legacy she inherited. While dad’s contribution to the world can be found in libraries across the planet, mother Gl...more Kaylie Jones has written a crying-from-laughter, weeping-from-sadness, can’t-put-it-down, through-a shot-glass-darkly memoir about growing up the child of literary giant James Jones. Her father’s WW II classics brought in enough income to allow the family a life of physical comfort. But alcoholism is quite resistant to a greenback cure, and both of Kaylie’s parents were afflicted, a legacy she inherited. While dad’s contribution to the world can be found in libraries across the planet, mother Gloria’s contribution was a lifetime of cruelty, control, selfishness and destructiveness along with an enormous capacity for laughter and fun. How could any child of two such parents possibly live up to the accomplishment of one parent, or survive the firestorm of the other? Apparently Kaylie Jones has come through, battle-scarred but still standing.

The social milieu in which the Jones family existed was shared by what seems like most of the major American writers of the 20th century. She drops more names than a phone book deliveryman, but there is no snooty obnoxiousness associated with this. She is not trying to build herself up by referencing the wealthy, the well-known and the accomplished among her family’s associates. The presence of these people was merely what was normal in that world. You could do worse in creating a survey course on 20th century American literature than to list the writers the Jones family knew personally. The details offered here also add insight into some of their well-known works. It might be a bit tough for a kid growing up among so many bright lights not to feel a bit overshadowed. And it is to her credit that she so clearly notes that she benefited professionally in no small quantity because of who she was rather than purely on what she had done.

Raised in Paris, fluent in French and Russian, an award-winning author of screenplays short stories and five novels, Jones managed to overcome her barriers, accept some of her advantages and, while she has not attained the acclaim of her famed parent, she has managed to succeed in her chosen profession. How many writers, whatever their parentage, can say that? Lies My Mother Never Told Me reads and entertains like a novel. It is one of the most interesting, most engaging memoirs I have read.
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Apr 04, 2011 Roussie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Kaylie Jones is James Jones' daughter (he wrote From Here to Eternity among other WW2 books). Her early life was populated by all the great writers of the time (Mailer, Vonnegut, Styron, etc.). Her mother, however, was an incredibly cruel alcoholic. The first half of the book is a fascinating account of her high-living parents; the second half a less compelling account of her own alcoholism and her mother's descent into alcoholic insanity.

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Feb 20, 2010 Lynne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-reviewed

Kaylie's memoir is about the effects of her childhood amongst literary giants (her father James Jones and his friends & contemporaries) and the perpetual spiraling control her mother's influence had on her during her entire life. The tale traces the way alcohol colors most memories, either through Kaylie's own abuse and eventual recovery or through her mother's constant losing battle. She weaves the story of her life in a way that makes it easy to read and feel along with her, especially onc...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Anna added it

Gut wrenching. A child of privilege raised with every trapping of wealth by a loving, troubled father and an abusive alcoholic mother. The cruelty she endures at her mother's tongue is unspeakable. The daughter repeats the sins of the mother and becomes an abuser herself. A sad, crushing portrait of life with a chronic alcoholic who seemingly had everything but threw it all away and nearly destroyed her daughter.

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Jan 04, 2013 Julianna rated it 3 of 5 stars

It gets redundant half way through, like yeah you said that already, a few times.

I gave up on caring about Ms Jones around that time too. It was a slog to finish, but somehow I was compelled because so many people let this poor little rich girl down. Maybe if I were an alcoholic, or the child of one, it would be more interesting. My family drama lies elsewhere.

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Jun 08, 2010 Adrienne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

A random group of stories about her life, but the writing style is engaging and readable. The appeal is on several levels - from a literary history perspective it's interesting to learn about the personalities of famous authors; it's always interesting to hear the inter-generational effects of alcoholism; and as a woman I enjoy reading about relationships and motherhood.

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Jan 30, 2012 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Wasn't sure why I picked up this book but I did and I don't regret. It was not an uplifting book but I found I kept wanting to read about this horrible mother/daughter relationship. Maybe because it left me feeling so glad I am not an alcoholic and was not raised by any! I did wish Kaylie would have grown some balls earlier on but what can I say? And it did peak my interest about alcoholics and the cycle it brings out in a family- often a generational cycle. If you liked The Glass Castle, you mi...more

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Mar 06, 2011 Anne Earney rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was not familiar with James Jones's novels or Kaylie's, but after reading this memoir, I'd like to read more. Kaylie Jones looks at her life unflinchingly, but without the know-it-all tone some memoirs have. At the end, she is still questioning, but she has also learned a lot, and she's presented what she's learned in a such a way as to make a clear picture of a convoluted life.

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May 22, 2012 Richard Fellinger rated it 5 of 5 stars

Brutally honest. The daughter of the great WWII novelist James Jones takes on the issues of family and alcoholism with the same guts that her dad wrote about war. Anyone who believes that good writing is about telling the truth will appreciate this.

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Nov 23, 2010 Beth Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was hard to put down. Hot gossip on dead writers and frank sinatra. Life with parents with grandiose lifestyles and little concern for consequences...interesting to read about, probably tough to grow up in the midst of.

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May 24, 2012 Neal rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow. This was a tough look at growing up the daughter of alcoholics, a famous writer for a father and a bitter mother. Very good. Actually, now I want to read her dad's books. His name was James Jones. He wrote "From Here to Eternity" among other critically-acclaimed bestsellers.

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Jul 02, 2012 Pat rated it 1 of 5 stars

YAWN. This was not only the most disorganized memoirs I've ever read, it's also the most one with the most gratuitous name-dropping. I do not recommend this to anyone and I simply cannot understand all the good reviews. Oh well.

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Aug 07, 2010 Richard Cytowic rated it 4 of 5 stars

Met the author at the Southampton Writers Conference. Happened to finish it on Kaylie's birthday!
A compelling conflict between mother and daughter, and a lovely reverie of "my" era from the 1950s-70s

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About Kaylie Jones

Kaylie Jones is the author of the forthcoming memoir, LIES MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME.

Kaylie chairs the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, which awards $10,000 annually to an unpublished first novel.

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Medical research has revealed that in about one-tenth of the population, the liver processes alcohol differently, releasing a chemical messenger that creates the craving for another drink; once that second drink is taken, the desire is doubled. But the real problem of the alcoholic is actually centered in the mind, because we can’t remember why it was such a bad idea to pick up that first drink. Once we start, we can’t stop; and when we stop, we can’t remember why we shouldn’t start again. It is a form of mental illness, like a manic-depressive who, after being stabilized on medication for a while, suddenly decides she is fine and no longer needs her pills.
” — 6 people liked it

“You’re in the hallway and it feels scary right now but just keep going. There’s another door, and you’re going to find it. And then the whole world is going to open up to you.” — 4 people liked it

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