Ashley C. Ford

“Sure to be one of the best memoirs of 2021.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “So clear, sharp, and smooth that the reader sees, in vivid focus, Ford’s complicated childhood, brilliant mind, and golden heart. Ford is a writer for the ages, and Somebody’s Daughter will be a book of the year.” —Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed “Ford’s wrenchingly brilliant memoir is truly a classic in the making. The writing is so richly observed and so suffused with love and yearning that I kept forgetting to breathe while reading it.” —John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author One of the most prominent voices of her generation debuts with an extraordinarily powerful memoir: the story of a childhood defined by the looming absence of her incarcerated father. Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. There are just a few problems: he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there. She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates. When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration . . . and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down. Somebody’s Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor, Black girl in Indiana with a family fragmented by incarceration, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she embarks on a powerful journey to find the threads between who she is and what she was born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.

A Memoir

Somebody's Daughter

Morgan Wilson 

Lizeth Esmeralda

When she said that thing to me, that I could always come home, part of me wanted to reply, “Mama, I love you, but I’ll work myself past the white meat, down to the bone, and fistfight every stranger I run across on the street before we live under the same roof again.”

I was confused. I didn’t know how to be the child my mother wanted me to be. 

The library felt to good to be true. All those books, on all those shelves, and I could just pluck them out, one by one, find an empty chair, and read, and read, and read… My imagination had already taken me on a million wild rides, but here was unlimited adventure. For the rest of my life, I would seek out the library the way some search for the soft light of a chapel in the dark. 

Kids can always tell the difference between adults who want to empower them, and adults who want to overpower them. 

We didn't know, back then, there are about a million ways to love and be loved by another person. We thought what we had, the way we had it, was the only way it could be. We were stuck.

When you don’t grow up with a certain kind of affection, even if you know you’re worthy of it, it can be hard to accept in adulthood. 

I knew I was lucky to have so many people rooting for me, good people …but sometimes my feelings of unworthiness crept in. A part of me was ashamed that I’d gotten my version of “it all”, and felt compelled to smash it under my heel… It made me angry. I didn’t want to be sad, I didn’t want to be anxious

Amelia

Up until my grandmother died, I’d just accepted the way things were, resigned to my role as the member of my family no one quite understood. It had been enough, maybe even part of the fuel that kept me going in the warped way these things do sometimes, but now, I wanted more. I wanted their closeness. I wanted to start over, and let them see me as I am. I wanted to trust them. I wanted us to be as we are, people who love each other. I had a life and a home in New York with Kelly, but in so many ways, I'd abandoned my home here in Indiana. It didn't have to be this way. However complicated, I could exist in both, as me, fully me. I could be strong enough, because I had to be--if I didn't want to lose this. And I knew I didnt.

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