Turning Inside Out [Kindle Edition]

Phyllis Lily Jules (Author)

Book Description

In an outer world that is impossible, an inner world grows out of the wreckage. Built by a little girl too young to know how it might be done, she did it her way and then lived with it all. This is her story. Searing, shocking, yet holding treasures deep where it matters.

Granddaughter to the man who invented The Lemonade Diet, the Master Cleanse, she knew a different man from what the world pegged as a new-age healer. Behind Stanley Burroughs' public face was another one. That was the face she saw. That was the man she knew. Knew too well.

This is an autobiography set in the present, during the time of its own writing, but rich with the experiences of a shattered childhood. It shows the consequences of abuse, corruption, and evil on a small child and the woman she grew into – a woman saved by her unique means of engaging with her own psychology. And equally saved by her unique appreciation of beauty. Beauty that can be found even in an ugly world.

94,700 words, around 270 paperback pages

Product Details

• File Size: 443 KB
• Print Length: 280 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006SMD0OC
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #494,715 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars At first, it was like a broken promise, then it became a crime. April 29, 2012

By BookJunkie

Format:Kindle Edition

"Turning Inside Out" started out choppy, but with glints of a good story to come. The author was the granddaughter of self-styled health practitioner Stanley Burroughs, most famous for the Master Cleanse diet. Burroughs also was convicted of killing a cancer patient with his controversial treatments and practicing medicine without a license. He was a charlatan and therefore a potentially interesting subject.

The author's first few chapters promise to show us how Burroughs' craziness translated to repeated acts of physical and emotional abuse against his granddaughter. At some points, Phyllis succeeds in relaying the methodical tortures that Burroughs inflicted -- I could feel the burn of the colored lights, for instance -- but at other points she either doesn't explain well or even at all. Readers are too often left with unanswered and barely answered questions. Apparently, although Phyllis lived with her mother, she spent much (most? a little? some?) time at her grandparent's house, where she was starved, abused, mentally and physically tormented with extreme discipline and ultimately pimped out to other men who paid Grandpa for her services -- all before the age of 8, which is the last time she saw him during childhood.

It might have made a better story had Phyllis spent more time fleshing out the horrors she presumably lived through, but she states that she doesn't want to be responsible for "burning things" into the reader's brain. I'd rather have a fully developed book "burned" into my brain than try to make it through a whole bunch of vague, stream of consciousness writing that skips around the core of the story and leaves me to fill in the many, many blanks.

That was the broken promise. The author promised to expose Burroughs for the monster she saw and show how it affected her, but that promise wasn't fully kept.

The story became a crime of literature when, after several short and poorly descriptive chapters on her childhood, the author then spends the remainder of the book going on and on and on about the multiple personalities she has as a result of the tortures she endured. Literally, dozens of them, and none of them are interesting. I found myself sorely disappointed as chapter after chapter told no story at all, but merely described these other personalities, her relationship with them, and their reason for being. It became a yawn fest.

I would hold this book up as an example of a person who shouldn't have written their own story (even with the help of other personalities). What might have been a fascinating bird's eye view into the life of a mad man and the havoc he wreaked was, instead, a rather flat and timid examination. The author's "voice" is weak and fearful, self-conscious, and buried by its propensity for "dream state" ramblings rather than cohesive storytelling.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Piercing July 23, 2012

By Buddhastalin

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Phyllis Lily Jules survived unspeakable abuse as a young child by constructing an elaborate inner world through which we learn about her tormented outer world. Comparison can be made to Truddi Chase's When Rabbit Howls as we are introduced to the multiple characters that inhabit Jules' inner world. But instead of "The Troops" concocting the story of their host as in Chase's account, here we witness Jules' agency through her reflections on the process of writing the book over the course of one year as she unravels the narrative of her "team of helpers." She makes clear that she does not accept the visions of her inner world as reality. She points out that unlike her friend Mary who was a "multiple personality" (read: Dissociative Integration Disorder) and who had no control of her inner selves, Phyllis calls hers when she needs them. We are left to ponder how much of this construct is the creation of her adult mind grappling with an explanation of how a little girl endures horrific abuse. Whatever the case may be, it is a brilliant creation none the less.

This was a deeply personal read for me because the perpetrator of the abuse that Jules describes, Stanley Burroughs, was my father's teacher and mentor. My father perpetuated the Burroughs franchise in Western Canada for several years. I identify with many of the images that Jules conjures in telling her story: the Master Cleanse, the colored light therapy, the Vita-Flex treatments.

I am fortunate to never have been the victim of abuse. However, even as a child, the discourse of guilt around the Burroughs brand never sat well with me: the idea that my disease is my fault. The underlying premise here being that I could be healed if I were only able to release enough toxins, or vibrate at a high enough frequency, or think enough positive thoughts.

Cast as the embodiment of pure evil, Burroughs is now exposed in Turning Inside Out as Yeats' "rough beast, its hour come round at last." Jules' narrative discourse is ultimately one of deliverance. By coiling time and reaching back to restructure the ghost of her former self, Jules writes a book to pierce our hearts. Thank you, Malachite.

Those who are interested in the creativity of the human psyche in the face of extreme abuse will not be disappointed with this lyrical memoir. Turning Inside Out is a testament to the persistence of the human spirit. Jules provides hope to survivors.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you, Phyllis July 5, 2012

By Carol Hosler

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am grateful to Phyllis for this job well done. It's not just about her. It's about all victims of abuse who have to rely on inner resources to survive. I have known two women to whom I will recommend this book. One has no memory of what was done to her, but she has had many inner protectors with whom she continued to relate in her adulthood. This book helps me understand so many conversations she and I had. The other woman does, painfully, remember her abuse which extended years longer than Phyllis's. It makes me furious to think about the life-long impact that such bestial people have on those they were supposed to protect. They endure life-long turmoil -- as well as occasions of redemption -- with which they have to deal in the process of gaining perspective on their lives. This book is for those who are willing to hang in there with Phyllis as she journeys in recovery, and who are then able to open their eyes to the abuse that continues, year after year, to many children. If you can't hang in there with her as she finds her voice, don't bother to pick it up. Phyllis, may you continue to know Blessing.

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