My Father's Keeper: She had to protect him. He made her promise. She was his 10-year-old daughter.

Description

A powerful and compelling memoir of growing up with a schizophrenic father, who hid his mental illness behind a charismatic larger-than-life, gluttonous personality and found logical explanations for the most bizarre ways of thinking. As a child Julie was close to her father. More friend than parent, he would belt her into their tiny car and they'd punch through yellow lights, scarf down candy bars before supper and had their own way of making fun of Julie's mother in a secret language of eye-rolling. She adored her father for his exuberance, and pitied him when he broke down in suicidal desperation. But as she neared 10, a darker side emerged: her father could switch instantly from squeaking out a tear as they harmonized to "Hey Jude" in the car, to pulling his loaded pistol on the man that asked for change in the McDonald's drive-thru as they waited. The isolation that came with the family's move to the country saw the wacky, unorthodox elements of her father's denied mental illness take a back seat to paranoid fear. Her father would tell her any boy who befriended her was just pretend-acting until he could rape her, and Julie came to fear all boys and men. He fell ever deeper into paranoid delusions that his daughter was sexually active, prostituting herself, sneaking out at night to sleep with black men. When Julie was 14 her father attempted suicide and was placed in a locked psychiatric ward. Julie was made to testify against her father, and when he was released he became convinced she had turned on him. Julie became the target of his ever more paranoid delusions. Julie left home before 18 but her father's schizophrenic behaviour bled over into her own life: if she couldn't find the hairdryer, she would check for signs of entry. When it later turned up, she would wonder how the thief broke back in to return it. Confused, lost and damaged from years spent as the only confidante of her paranoid schizophrenic father, but determined to survive, Julie was finally able to come to terms with her father. She was her father's keeper, and always would be.

Julie J. Gregory was born May 16, 1969 in Columbus, Ohio. She spent a few early years in Phoenix before her family moved deep into the hollow of a dirt road in Southern Ohio. It was there that Julie cultivated a deep love of nature and a defiant protection of animals; sneaking earthworms out of the fishing bucket, picking ticks off the farm dogs, checking roadside trash bags for abandoned litters of kittens. When she left home, she bought a 70's Buick convertible, lived light and continued to rescue and save animals; a parallel act in lieu of being able to save herself from a locked down past. Over the years Julie has fed the sharks and stingrays in the Columbus aquarium, nurtured frigates and pelicans in the wild, rescued African hedgehogs, and adopted rabbits and dogs from medical labs. During her twenties, Julie excelled at being a freelance isolationist; doing everything from voice-over work for those on-hold message systems ("Thank you for holding, press one for...") or local radio ("Yanni! June 29th at Polaris Amphitheatre!") to face painting for kids parties, to the occasional dreaded temp job. She is a terrible typist. Her customer service skills are, at best, hostile. She has lived in LA, London, Death Valley, Key West and been to all points in between. She's a 4 year veteran of Burning Man, has criss-crossed the country, hitchhiked through the Virgin Islands, rode a camel into the Zagora desert and now lives with her pets in the Midwest.

Praise for My Father's Keeper: 'Poignant and thought-provoking, it is a sad but powerful tale.' The Sun 'Powerful and compelling' Lincolnshire Echo Praise for My Father's Keeper: 'A sad but powerful tale.' The Sun Praise for Julie Gregory and 'Sickened': 'A terrific writer.' Sunday Times 'One of the books of the year.' Glamour 'It blazes with truth and anger... a true story of survival and achievement against the odds.' Sunday Telegraph 'A remarkably well-written and affecting book.' Time Out 'This story of unfathomable child abuse is told with remarkable wit, compassion, and courage. It's a work of beauty from a beast of a childhood.' Augusten Burroughs, bestselling author of 'Running With Scissors'