UNDERWATER DAUGHTER

An abuse survivor strives to come to terms with her difficult past in this debut memoir.

“A lounge lizard lived in my home, posing as my brilliant and fumbly dumbly father,” recalls Deignan; she goes on to say that he sexually abused her between the ages of 4 and 11. Her mother, she writes, was aware of the abuse but overlooked it. She also relates that she was raped by an adult lead performer while attending a children’s theatre school. Her dance career flourished after leaving that institution, as she joined dance companies in Chicago and New York, but she also relied on sex and drugs to dull her emotional pain. After becoming a mother, Deignan says she strived for “safety and normalcy” for her children, but she often faced chaos in her personal life. A bicycle accident at age 55 led her to reassess her past trauma, including her damaging relationship with her parents. Deignan’s writing style is courageously confessional and creatively descriptive; as she recalls finding her grandfather’s Playboy collection as a young girl, she writes, “A centerfold. Pointy hips on the left and right, a waistline you could wear as a bracelet; I flipped and folded, flipped and folded.” Readers may find some moments in this book uncomfortable, but they serve to highlight the author’s complex emotions. At times, Deignan’s approach is rhythmically poetic: “Every day, I got high, sniff snow dust flake, ‘feeling the love’ deep into my skull.” This style adds another layer to the narrative, as the author delves deeply into her past experiences in search of understanding. Readers who have experienced similar trauma will relate to Deignan’s unsteadying description of her own journey.

An elegantly written and harrowing remembrance of the long-lasting impact of childhood trauma.