What She Stole

Memory is the girl and the girl, memory. Memory is the story we tell ourselves to hide, or to find, the truth down deep. Sometimes those two stories--the one we tell and the one buried deep--are the same. Seventeen-year-old Eloise Goldstein gets picked up for shoplifting at the local suburban mall and spends hours waiting for her narcissistic mother to pick her up. As the security guard locks her in a holding room, she sits with nothing to do but "think about her actions." Alone, repressed memories emerge, bringing her childhood--growing up with a schizophrenic father and depressed mother--into new light. From the author of the award-winning poetry chapbook "Birth of a Daughter" comes a lyrical coming-of-age novel about a young woman who struggles to feel loved and find her voice among a chaotic and abusive household. "What She Stole" explores how one woman, shaped by the dichotomies of memory and trauma, uses writing, mothering, and bodywork to heal.