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If I Should Die Before I Wake
Sexually abused by her father, seventeen-year-old Carla is torn between devotion and shame, love and hatred, and loyalty and rage, and finds her only link with sanity in her first love, Dean
- GenresFiction
197 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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September 28, 2025Picked this up for the Andrea Dworkin blurb, and it was harrowing reading - for probably all the same reasons Dworkin would have blurbed it in the first place.
I'm not sure I can rate this one. If I Should Die Before I Wake is the story of seventeen-year-old Carla, told using a number of framing devices: a letter (series of letters?) to 'Jessie', a female teacher who was clearly formative for Carla, though we never actually get to meet her; direct address to the reader; flashback; flash-forward (this is the way the narrative begins and ends, with the direct address timeline eventually catching up to the opening flash-forward); and sections formatted like screenplays, which are used to differentiate between Carla's persona and the personas of her 'Voices', each of whom inhabit one of her puppets, coming to the fore during moments of distress in what we would today call dissociation.
It's extremely fragmented, though at no point did it feel difficult to follow, which is a testament to Morris's writing. That fragmentation also feels true to what we now know about the psyches of those who have suffered such abuse, especially children. If there is one critique I have of this book, it is that it was perhaps too true; drawing from her real-life experiences working with victims of CSA, Morris recounts Carla's abuse in graphic detail. Rarely have I felt so sickened and disturbed by something I'm reading as I did here.
Again, I understand completely why this would have appealed to a second-wave feminist like Dworkin. Morris paints a stark and revealing picture of male power at its worst. Carla's father's depravity, his physical and mental dominion, is total and complete. It's powerful now and it would have been powerful then, but it was just so, so difficult to read. I'm not sure I could recommend it to anyone.
EDIT: I wanted to know more about this novel, but Michelle Morris is weirdly difficult to find online. I did stumble across this, however, and I'm now feeling truly awful about persevering with something that so disturbed me. As far as I've been able to find, as of August 2023 Morris has been charged with multiple counts of abuse against children and adult dependents in her care, both sexual and otherwise, and is awaiting trial.
I'm not sure I can rate this one. If I Should Die Before I Wake is the story of seventeen-year-old Carla, told using a number of framing devices: a letter (series of letters?) to 'Jessie', a female teacher who was clearly formative for Carla, though we never actually get to meet her; direct address to the reader; flashback; flash-forward (this is the way the narrative begins and ends, with the direct address timeline eventually catching up to the opening flash-forward); and sections formatted like screenplays, which are used to differentiate between Carla's persona and the personas of her 'Voices', each of whom inhabit one of her puppets, coming to the fore during moments of distress in what we would today call dissociation.
It's extremely fragmented, though at no point did it feel difficult to follow, which is a testament to Morris's writing. That fragmentation also feels true to what we now know about the psyches of those who have suffered such abuse, especially children. If there is one critique I have of this book, it is that it was perhaps too true; drawing from her real-life experiences working with victims of CSA, Morris recounts Carla's abuse in graphic detail. Rarely have I felt so sickened and disturbed by something I'm reading as I did here.
Again, I understand completely why this would have appealed to a second-wave feminist like Dworkin. Morris paints a stark and revealing picture of male power at its worst. Carla's father's depravity, his physical and mental dominion, is total and complete. It's powerful now and it would have been powerful then, but it was just so, so difficult to read. I'm not sure I could recommend it to anyone.
EDIT: I wanted to know more about this novel, but Michelle Morris is weirdly difficult to find online. I did stumble across this, however, and I'm now feeling truly awful about persevering with something that so disturbed me. As far as I've been able to find, as of August 2023 Morris has been charged with multiple counts of abuse against children and adult dependents in her care, both sexual and otherwise, and is awaiting trial.
April 7, 2025
fyfan…. har jätte svårt att rate:a boken för den var så horribelt förjävligt hemsk men den får 3,5. Hade önskat att jag läst den på engelska & inte en svensk översättning från 90-talet
August 24, 2012
It’s difficult reading stories of child abuse and credit is due to Morris for making her work of fiction seem so real. It was a truly haunting book that stays with you long after you’re finished reading.
Morris depicts her main character Carla as both victim and manipulator. She is at the mercy of her controlling father who beats and sexually abuses her, and yet she lies and manipulates those around her, including her best friend. She’s incredibly frustrating to the reader as she continually covers for her father and the excuses she makes for him, but Morris writes so well that you can’t help but feel empathetic towards her. Morris suitably villainesses the father and makes him a repulsive and disgusting human being. I was a little confused by the Jessie character that Carla writes to as we never met or find out anything much about her.
Unfortunately I think that the books structure let it down. Morris tried to cleverly weave together Carla’s childhood memories, her letters to Jessie, her conversations with her puppets and her messages to her mother as a small child. However it doesn’t flow well and can be confusing sometimes as to which time she’s writing about.
As horrific as it was to read at times and the terrible images it conjured, it was an enjoyable book and was very interesting to see how Carla developed as a character.
Morris depicts her main character Carla as both victim and manipulator. She is at the mercy of her controlling father who beats and sexually abuses her, and yet she lies and manipulates those around her, including her best friend. She’s incredibly frustrating to the reader as she continually covers for her father and the excuses she makes for him, but Morris writes so well that you can’t help but feel empathetic towards her. Morris suitably villainesses the father and makes him a repulsive and disgusting human being. I was a little confused by the Jessie character that Carla writes to as we never met or find out anything much about her.
Unfortunately I think that the books structure let it down. Morris tried to cleverly weave together Carla’s childhood memories, her letters to Jessie, her conversations with her puppets and her messages to her mother as a small child. However it doesn’t flow well and can be confusing sometimes as to which time she’s writing about.
As horrific as it was to read at times and the terrible images it conjured, it was an enjoyable book and was very interesting to see how Carla developed as a character.
September 8, 2021
Very disturbing book.
June 29, 2020
NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER.
Did as I was told and what a great treat this has truly been!
I had a reading slump for months and it wasn't until yesterday that I finally decided to hype up. My copy of If I Should Die Before I Wake isn't something that will turn your head around. It has been on my pile for so long that some of its edges were eaten up by bookworms and almost looked frail and ill-shaped. But such did not stop me from grabbing it for as the cliche goes, there is beauty beyond external characteristics.
This book is a psychological thriller that revolves around Carla (the heroin of the story) and her journey into a world of incomprehensible brutality. I love how its language isn't as crude as the ever controversial issue that it carries, ---- sexual abuse of children. It is strikingly authentic, too authentic that it creeps into your entrails, curdles your blood, and quickens the beating of your heart. Ah, these feels! Surprisingly all in the perspective of a child. This, for me, is one of the bravest materials in the social movement of eradication of sexual abuse of children.
However overwhelmed, I'm gonna stop from here because if you want to know more about it, you have to read it for yourself.
Ah, realizations. Realizations so far, well, love can make us sometimes compassionate, but sometimes a tyrant.
Did as I was told and what a great treat this has truly been!
I had a reading slump for months and it wasn't until yesterday that I finally decided to hype up. My copy of If I Should Die Before I Wake isn't something that will turn your head around. It has been on my pile for so long that some of its edges were eaten up by bookworms and almost looked frail and ill-shaped. But such did not stop me from grabbing it for as the cliche goes, there is beauty beyond external characteristics.
This book is a psychological thriller that revolves around Carla (the heroin of the story) and her journey into a world of incomprehensible brutality. I love how its language isn't as crude as the ever controversial issue that it carries, ---- sexual abuse of children. It is strikingly authentic, too authentic that it creeps into your entrails, curdles your blood, and quickens the beating of your heart. Ah, these feels! Surprisingly all in the perspective of a child. This, for me, is one of the bravest materials in the social movement of eradication of sexual abuse of children.
However overwhelmed, I'm gonna stop from here because if you want to know more about it, you have to read it for yourself.
Ah, realizations. Realizations so far, well, love can make us sometimes compassionate, but sometimes a tyrant.
September 1, 2011
A truely horrific story!
Carla is the main character and we are told the story through her, through her puppets, through her as a child and various stages of her young life to present day. The story starts with Carla having a gun on her father as he sleeps and recounts the horrors she has endured at his hands.
I have read a few of these kind of books and this one has unsettled me more than any of the true life ones. The abuse endured is often told in one or two sentences but this is more than enough to visualize what she has went through.
The story jumps an awful lot from present day to her young past with only her phrases as indication it is back to when she was a child which is quite off putting and confusing. She also talks through her various puppets and as letters or just thoughts directed to Jessie who was someone at the school encouraging the kids to talk out against abuse.
It is quite a strange story, more in the way the character narrates than the story which is easy enough to follow. For some reason this book disturbed me more than any other of its type, combined with the way it was written this is why it gets a 2/5 rating.
If you are considering reading this I advise you to prepare yourself as it is quite disturbing.
Carla is the main character and we are told the story through her, through her puppets, through her as a child and various stages of her young life to present day. The story starts with Carla having a gun on her father as he sleeps and recounts the horrors she has endured at his hands.
I have read a few of these kind of books and this one has unsettled me more than any of the true life ones. The abuse endured is often told in one or two sentences but this is more than enough to visualize what she has went through.
The story jumps an awful lot from present day to her young past with only her phrases as indication it is back to when she was a child which is quite off putting and confusing. She also talks through her various puppets and as letters or just thoughts directed to Jessie who was someone at the school encouraging the kids to talk out against abuse.
It is quite a strange story, more in the way the character narrates than the story which is easy enough to follow. For some reason this book disturbed me more than any other of its type, combined with the way it was written this is why it gets a 2/5 rating.
If you are considering reading this I advise you to prepare yourself as it is quite disturbing.
August 22, 2015
A competent if formulaic look at incest. Eighteen-year-old Carla, the narrator, reveals her abuse, her escape fantasies, her self-hatred, her secret-keeping skills, her confusion as she reviews her life under the control of her perverted, monstrous father. It does not end happily. I think I read this because I was working on a play about a similar subject at the Perry St. Theater. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden was slightly more imaginatively complex, as I recall.
November 9, 2014
I loved the book, the way is written, the style. It's almost like a dialogue. A difficult, painful to read story. A book about lost innocence, monsters and pain. there were moments when I wished I could hug that girl, when I could pull that trigger myself. I felt her fear, her disgust, her despair mixed with my rage.
August 6, 2016
The subject of the book is disturbing and not for the faint of heart. During my early teen years, a friend's mom had the friend's older sister lend me this book. Not sure this book was the best recommendation, given my young age.
August 15, 2009
Første boka jeg leste om pedofili. Gjorde veldig inntrykk.
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September 30, 2010got 20 pages in. maybe i'll give it another try some time.
April 24, 2013
For my complete and honest review please follow the link to my blog http://jazminjade.wordpress.com/2013/...
February 23, 2023
It was good. A girl taken and obnoxiously raised by her father. She’s finally found the truth and did what she had to do.
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