With four young daughters and a miserably failed marriage, Debra Gwartney made the decision to move halfway across the country to Oregon for a new job and what she hoped would be a new life for herself and her daughters. The two oldest, Amanda, 15, and Stephanie, 13, are intensely linked, and come to blame their mother for the divorce, their absent father’s misery, and their family’s isolation. The two run off together — first to the streets of their own city, then jumping freight trains to Portland, then San Francisco, then utterly gone. Live Through This: A Mother’s Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love is the story of Gwartney’s frantic effort to recover the beautiful, intelligent daughters she cherishes. She paints a vivid picture of the American runaway subculture, with its random violence, dangerous street drugs, and its patchwork of hidden shelters — none of them interested in a parent’s grief.
Sponsored
