Childhood's Thief: One Woman's Journey of Healing from Sexual Abuse [Paperback]

Rose Mary Evans (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1995

JoAnn is suffering from depression and has no memory of her childhood. Rose Mary Evans is the therapist who treats her. JoAnn Eventually reveals a story of abuse so vile that is a miracle she has survived at all, much less made a success of her life. Readers will be compelled by JoAnn's vivid writing and fascinated by the psychological insights Evans provides.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Therapist Evans adds to the plethora of recent books about abusive sexual childhood experiences by detailing her encounters with a client she calls JoAnn. Blatantly admitting that her social work training did not equip her to treat a client with JoAnn's complex problems, she nonetheless worked with her for many years. When JoAnn spontaneously began to record her early memories, Evans encouraged her to continue. These disjointed reminiscences, written in dialect, are extensively excerpted here. Evans does not define the goals of JoAnn's therapy, other than uncovering her past, and in the end it is not clear whether JoAnn's life has improved. Since neither client nor therapist are particularly endearing, the reader really doesn't care. A marginal purchase.
Carol R. Glatt, VA Medical Ctr. Lib., Philadelphia
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Social worker Evans' gives a compelling account of a client's recovery of a childhood laced with physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. When 47-year-old JoAnn first seeks therapy, she is suffering from a debilitating depression. In the course of analysis, she relives a childhood so devastating that she had no recourse but to completely blot it out. More than just an unwanted burden born to an unwed teenage mother, JoAnn was her mother's living curse. About her father, she was told: ``Your Father? You never had no Father! He left before you were ever borned. He never wanted you, stupid. I was the one stuck with you and NOT HIM!'' JoAnn's grandfather forced her to indulge his sexual appetites and those of his ``friends.'' As JoAnn grew older, she was expected to pay her way with her flesh. She survived by detaching her feelings ``from the mistreatment her body had to endure.'' As JoAnn begins to relive her submerged memories, she experiences a wide range of physical symptoms, even feeling kicks from her grandfather. The reader follows JoAnn's slow emergence from her depression. By the end of the book she is forging a new life for herself, with energy left over to crusade for abortion counseling and against sexual abuse. While we do get a strong sense of JoAnn's bitter childhood, the reader is told about a divorce without any sense of what her marriage was like. There are difficulties with her younger son, but no clues about her other children or her capabilities as a mother. And while the author intersperses JoAnn's first-person narrative with her own comments and insights, we lack a sense of the author (who informs her client and readers that she is gay). The book has an air of tabloid TV, but the human drama here remains powerful. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (July 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553375466
• ISBN-13: 978-0553375466
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,129,616 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 the best book i have EVER read on this subject, August 2, 2004

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booklover "booklover" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Childhood's Thief: One Woman's Journey of Healing from Sexual Abuse (Paperback)

10 stars! I recently purchased a used copy of this book since it is sadly out of print and just finished reading it. It was RIVETING. The story of "JoAnn's" childhood is told in alternating chapters between her writings and her therapist's. Instead of focusing on the horrors of JoAnn's childhood, and there were many, the story instead focuses on what saved JoAnn. It is also not about a mushy relationship between therapist and client, rather the story of an extraordinary woman who overcomes unbearable childhood conditions to grow up to be a woman who completely repressed her childhood in order to survive it. When she sets out to work on herself in therapy, what she uncovers is spellbinding. This is not the story of how a gifted and extraordinarily caring therapist drew a woman out of her shell, but rather the story of a gifted and motivated client who was determined to do all the hard work herself to overcome and remember her past. There is no other book like this that I have come across that focuses more on the client being the real hero of the story. A BIG THANK YOU to the therapist for writing JoAnn's story down. It has SO MUCH to share!!

I read nearly every book on childhood abuse that's out there and then I give the books away when I'm done reading them. I'm keeping this one though. This one is a piece of literature. Excellent writing. INCREDIBLE story. (Made into a movie called the Secret Path with Della Reese, I just learned after googling the author).