BREAK THE HEART OF ME

A southern incest survivor struggles to find her way in love and work in this second from Vaughn (Many Things Have Happened Since he Died and Here Are the Highlights, 1990): a gritty chronicle whose honest passion makes up for an admittedly tired premise. Sylvia Mullins has been through too much for her 23 years. Before her birth, her mother died in a car wreck, leaving Sylvia to be wrested from her lifeless body; by age eight, ``Paw Paw,'' the grandfather who raised Sylvia, began regularly molesting her; at 12, she discovered her grandmother dead in her bed of natural causes, and when her Uncle Mull came to rescue her from her Alabama home, he informed her that he was actually her father. Taken to Nashville to live with Uncle Mull, country/western drummer, and his high-strung wife, Sylvia attended Nashville Christian Academy, where she joined a club dedicated to preparing for the final Rapture—only to witness the suicide of the club's founder, her first love. Understandably, by age 18, when she marries Buddy, a 35-year-old building-supplies salesman, Sylvia has blanked out on most of her past. She takes a job as assistant to a vice-president at Sony Records and dedicates her spare time to writing songs and practicing her stepmother's drums, waiting for her big break. Then Jake Harris, a charismatic singer/songwriter, arrives from California on a Sony p.r. junket—and his tempting sexual advances, along with her husband's pleas to have a child, bring all Sylvia's horrifying memories to the surface. Even readers heartily weary of abuse tales may get hooked by Vaughn's no-frills prose as her heroine attempts to piece her life together against all odds: a commendable accomplishment by an author with a unique and compelling voice.