Thanks for writing the book. I, too, had an erratic, tyrannical father prone to violence. He was not an alcoholic, however. The best my brother and I can come up with was that he was mentally ill. I related to two things in particular in the book. The first was when you presented your story to producers and they said that it didn’t sound real; no one could believe it. My brother and I have often said that if anyone knew, they just wouldn’t believe some of the things we lived through. He wasn’t physically or sexually abusive; he just held the family in a tyrannical kind of mind control with his bizarre behavior. He eventually killed my mother with his behavior.
The other thing that touched me was when you mentioned how you never really knew him. We, too, never really knew my mother. She was so stifled and bewildered by him. He’s still alive, but we will never know him either. He now has Alzheimer’s disease and is in a locked unit in a nursing home. I visit him often, but he’s not sure who I am.
I don’t know why I’m telling you all this other than to let you know there are people out there who understand, as you obviously already know.
Yours,
A kindred spirit