MY PRETTY BABY

In this memoir, Correa reflects on the complex emotional consequences of childhood and adolescent trauma.

The author was the youngest of three siblings; her brother, Mark, was seven years older, and her sister, Sharon, 12 years older. Sharon resented her from the day their mother brought her home from the hospital in 1956, she says, for reasons that Correa reveals later in this remembrance; Mark was quiet and increasingly interested in his Christian faith. The author was only 7 when her 45-year-old father died, which turned her world upside down. She says of the funeral and the days that followed that “no one spoke to me about my grief, about my fears and my feelings.” She became terrified, she says, that her adored mother would soon die, and her mission became to protect her mom, which would prove challenging. Less than two years later, her mother brought a new man named Paul into the household. (The author notes that some names in her memoir have been changed.) Paul was a heavy drinker, she says, who was subject to capricious, violent outbursts. He’d had an abusive childhood, was divorced, and had five estranged children. Alternately kind and frightening, Paul became Correa’s stepfather. For college, the author headed to California, and in 1982, her life took an unexpectedly star-studded turn. Correa is an engaging wordsmith and fills her stories with detailed descriptions and period music references. The most emotional vignettes look back to her early years; in one searing tale, she imagines her sensitivity to approaching danger as a pet wolf: “When I heard Paul angrily stomp around, my wolf would start to pace the floor and sniff the air. Sometimes, the hair would stand up on his haunches, his nostrils would flare, and he would bare his teeth.” During her California years, she worked as a security volunteer for the 1982 Rose Bowl Peace concert and was later employed by a talent agency representing major folk-rock artists of the period. These SoCal sections overflow with giddy encounters with minor celebrities, such as Timothy B. Schmidt of the Eagles.

A sometimes-disturbing but affecting remembrance.