Stray
Ratings3
Average rating5
15
Ratings3
Average rating5
From the bestselling author of Sweetbitter, a memoir of growing up in a family shattered by lies and addiction, and of one woman's attempts to find a life beyond the limits of her past. After selling her first novel--a dream she'd worked long and hard for--Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she'd left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery. After years in New York City she's pulled home to Southern California by forces she doesn't totally understand, haunted by questions of legacy and trauma. Here, she works toward answers, uncovering hard truths about her parents and herself as she explores whether it's possible to change the course of her history. Stray is a moving, sometimes devastating, brilliantly written and ultimately inspiring exploration of the landscapes of damage and survival.
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“We don't receive the things we want because we deserve them. Most of the time we get them because we are blind and lucky. It's in the act of having, the daily tending, that we have an opportunity to become deserving. It's not a place to be reached. It is a constant betwixt and between. It's in that hollow, liminal space that I think—hope?—humility can be achieved.”
