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More About This Title My Lie
English
During the 1980s and 1990s, tens of thousands of Americans became convinced that they had repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse, and then, decades later, recovered those memories in therapy.
Journalist, mother, and daughter Meredith Maran was one of them. Her accusation and estrangement from her father caused her sons to grow up without their only grandfather, divided her family into those who believed her and those who didn't, and led her to isolate herself on "Planet Incest," where "survivors" devoted their lives, and life savings, to recovering memories of events that had never occurred.
Maran unveils her family's devastation and ultimate redemption against the backdrop of the sex-abuse scandals, beginning with the infamous McMartin preschool trial, that sent hundreds of innocents to jail—several of whom remain imprisoned today.
Exploring the psychological, cultural, and neuroscientific causes of this modern American witch-hunt, My Lie asks: how could so many people come to believe the same lie at the same time? What has neuroscience discovered about the brain's capacity to create false memories and encode false beliefs? What are the "big lies" gaining traction in American culture today—and how can we keep them from taking hold?
My Lie is a wrenchingly honest, unexpectedly witty, and profoundly human story that proves the personal is indeed political—and the political can become painfully personal.
English
English
Prologue: The Same Thing Happened to Me.
Introduction: One in Three.
Part One 1576-1982.
Chapter One Desperate Housewife.
Chapter Two In Feminism We Trust.
Part Two 1983-1993.
Chapter Three Please Question Your Child (and Your Childhood).
Chapter Four Breaking the Silence.
Chapter Five Daddy Can't Come Home Again.
Chapter Six Remember.
Chapter Seven Did He or Didn't He?
Chapter Eight In Therapy We Trust.
Part Three 1994-2009.
Chapter Nine Doubt.
Chapter Ten Deprogramming.
Chapter Eleven What Was I Thinking?
Chapter Twelve Eternal Sunshine of the Recovered Mind.
Chapter Thirteen In Neuroscience We Trust.
Chapter Fourteen Amends.
Epilogue: Grace.
Acknowledgments.
About the Author.
Book Group Reading Guide.
English
"Maran's story is so tension-filled that I want to keep some of the twists out of this review, allowing readers of this remarkable book to discover them apart from me." (San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 2010)
Only a writer as fierce and incisive as Meredith Maran could have written a book as intimate, dark, bracing and revelatory as My Lie.—MICHAEL CHABON, author of Manhood for Amateurs; and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Meredith Maran is a wonderful journalist and storyteller, profoundly honest, direct, witty, savvy and compassionate.
—ANNE LAMOTT, author of Grace (Eventually) and Bird By Bird
My Lie is the brave and riveting "inside story" of the most devastating mental health controversy of the century. I couldn't put it down.
—ELIZABETH F. LOFTUS, PHD, co-author of Witness for the Defense and The Myth of Repressed Memory
To admit sin is hard. To own a grave sin committed against a loved one is more difficult still. To be able to write about it with honesty and grace is extraordinary. My Lie by Meredith Maran tells a story no reader will—or should—forget.
—KATHRYN HARRISON, author of The Kiss and The Mother Knot
Meredith Maran is fearless, and My Lie is a shockingly honest, stunningly nuanced book. Every parent, and everyone who has a parent, should read this searing father-daughter story.
—AYELET WALDMAN, author of Bad Mother and Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
"This marvelous, searing book held me in its thrall from the moment I read the Prologue, and never let go. Meredith Maran has written a page-turner of a memoir, at once brave and heartbreaking. Who among us hasn't questioned her own memory? In navigating her family history, Maran becomes a detective, and MY LIE reads like a mystery all the more suspenseful because the writer has taken great care to tell the truth."
—DANI SHAPIRO, author of Devotion: A Memoir
