Broken Child [Hardcover]

Marcia Cameron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1995

This powerful tale takes readers on a harrowing, unforgettable journey into the nightmare of parental abuse and the darkness of mental illness. Written by a woman who endured horrendous abuse from her mother and became a split personality by the age of five, here is the story of her agonizing childhood, the conflicting personalties, and struggle back to sanity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This account of multiple personality disorder and child abuse is intensely moving, exhausting and powerful. When the author was three, her German mother, Gisela, an ardent Nazi who moved to Southern California in 1936, began to torture her?knifing and burning Marcia's flesh, mutilating her genitals and locking her in a closet for hours while Marcia's father, Frank, a German-Jewish immigrant lawyer, was at work. Marcia Cameron (a pseudonym) split into multiple selves?promiscuous, reckless Emily; thumb-sucking Sunshine, an eternal six-year-old; Sophie, a loving Jewish mother; Camille, a blind girl; condescending, four-times-baptized Muriel; and Joey, an angry, food-obsessed Jewish boy. When Marcia, at 13, told her father about Gisela's abuse, he left his wife, taking Marcia and her two brothers with him. A year later, Frank died and Marcia returned to her mother. At 18, spinal meningitis and a coma led to speech and motor impairment, and Marcia was raped several times while hospitalized. Although she eventually married and had a son and daughter, her life was punctuated by dissociative episodes, suicide attempts, "Emily's" affairs and a succession of inept psychotherapists. Through six years with San Francisco psychiatrist Steinman, she integrated many of her personalities and continues to heal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

It is painfully difficult to bear witness to the countless incidents of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse suffered by Cameron. And after contemplating the possible consequences of a child suffering such trauma, it comes as no surprise that Cameron fractured into multiple personalities. Rendered in appalling detail is a litany of crimes committed against her in childhood by her mother; but to read Cameron's book is to ultimately accompany her on a lifelong journey toward healing. Even after locating a psychiatrist competent enough to treat her problems and help her move toward a realm of mental health, she has had an exhausting and interminable struggle. Cameron's story is heartbreaking and horrifying in its intensity. Alice Joyce

Product Details

• Hardcover: 396 pages
• Publisher: Kensington Books; 1 edition (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821748262
• ISBN-13: 978-0821748268
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,006,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely a disturbing story, but yet very good, March 5, 2004

By 

Eric (El Sobrante, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Broken Child (Mass Market Paperback)

I discovered The Broken Child when I was in the 11th grade, and I started it and was shocked that this woman went through these trials with her mother. It is a autobiography about a woman who's mother was racist against her own daughter; she hated her from child birth. She would not even look at her own daughter because her mom was anti-semantic. She said this when she first saw her "That is not my child, that is a Jewish child!" Her mother abused her beyond anything I have ever heard of; she pumped a broom stick into her vagaina while screaming "Now I am going to teach how to use your Jewish c*nt!" She was locked in a closet while her father worked, and her mother abused her whenever she got the chance, but when her father was at home, she treated her like she was a princess.
While in the closet, she developed split-personalities and became these personalities when she was put in there, and she saw them as her friends. Eventually she told the truth to her father, and her father divorced her and got joint custody of her and her brothers who were not abused as her. Then her father died in a plane accident and she had to go live back with her mother. As she got older, her mother eventually died, but she left her with emotional scars and physical scars. One of her personalities named Lucy was a s*ut; she would go out every night (her personalities), and would have sex with men she just met, then she would wake up wondering where she was and discovered semen between her legs, and would cry her eyes out.
Eventually she got married, but when she was touched a certain way; she would freeze up like a statue because it remined her of the past. She had kids, but she still had the mental scars with her. She then got some help, but she discovered new memories that she never thought she had, and this made her more depressed and almost on the verge of suicide. As she got older, she then realized that she had to get over this, so she got more help and eventually got rid of the personalities and discovered her surroundings; her kids, her husband, and she found a new lease on life, and she discovered how to live life without the scars still on her mind.

I am sorry if I offended anybody, but what I said in this book is explained in this novel. This novel has changed my life forever, and it should be read with a open mind, and also it makes you think that this woman went through this, but yet she was able to come up in the world and to have a family of her own. It can be very inspirational but yet VERY sad.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You may think your past was rough?.....Think again......., May 21, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Seymour, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Broken Child (Hardcover)

I have read this book, and I must say that not only did I cry, but I also gained a totally new appreciation for the blessings that I have had. Marcia Cameron is not only extremely lucky to have survived her undeserving chidhood, she is a wonderful and beautiful person inside. After finishing her book, I mailed her a handwritten letter to commend her for her strength and courage. To my surprise, SHE took the time to write ME a handwritten thank you note for my comments. God Bless You, Marcia Cameron. -- You are one hell of a lady!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost Unbelievable, October 9, 2000

By 

Jennifer Hall (Rockmart, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Broken Child (Hardcover)

While reading this memoir, you find yourself wishing it were fictional. That there are humans out there capable of this kind of torture on their own children is unbearable. Having read many different accounts, true and fictional, of child abuse, I have to say this is the worst I've ever heard of. The author is lucky to have even survived it.

Yet her survival is a hard and long struggle, even years after the abuse itself has ended. Reading of the terrors she endured, then the aftermath of living with it, surpressing the truth, trying to function normally, failing miserably at that, searching for a psychiatrist that will help her...failing at that, it just gets worse and worse.

This is not a story that will make you feel good. You will be upset, angry, sad and hurt. But you do find hope in the end. Hope that the narrator can somehow get through the past and into the future, that if you can survive something like this, then you can certainly survive almost everything. Not an easy read.