Fierce A Memoir

We were sitting on the back steps. He smoked while I sketched the pine trees behind our house, drawing with an ink pen in a spiral notebook that was supposed to be filled with notes for my upcoming American history final. "We're pulling out of Vietnam," he said. "You wouldn't have to worry about going to war." He sighed. "Anyway, it'd get you out of this godforsaken place." He dropped his cigarette, snuffed it out with the toe of his shoe, and sauntered down the steps -- heading to the bar. I watched him throw a hand briefly into the air and climb into his car. I waved back, knowing he'd come home drunk and ready for a fight. I worried that his mild suggestion to join the military might turn into a demand come midnight. I cringed at the thought of how my present situation -- graduating without any prospects -- might turn into a salient point once he'd had a few drinks. The previous Friday night, he'd come home from the bar, and before Mother had time to turn on the lights, he started shouting, Barbara, when are you going to get a job?! The fact that I was still in high school, didn't own a car, and lived miles from the bus stop didn't seem to enter into the question. I tossed my spiral notebook onto the porch and climbed onto the glider of my baby sister Janet's swing set. I threw my legs over the backseat, flipped upside down, and closed my eyes. My long hair swept the grass as I pumped the swing into motion. I let my mind wander. Within seconds my favorite daydream filtered in. I'm at the opening of my first art show. Gorgeous paintings line the gallery walls: water lilies, several views of a haystack, bright sunflowers (images mentally swiped from my mother's art books). Suddenly a New York City gallery owner arrives. She's wearing a black dress with a bright red pillbox hat and matching lipstick. Thrilled with my artwork, she throws her arms around me. "You are brilliant," she declares. "I'm taking you straight to the Big Apple." Just then someone climbed onto the other seat of the glider. "What are you smiling about?" Doris Ann asked. "I'm not smiling," I said, opening my eyes and glaring at my younger sister. She flipped upside down and put her head next to mine. "You wanna walk down to Junior's house?" she asked. Junior, our closest neighbor, lived a mile away. "It's too hot," I said, shrugging my shoulders, irritated. "And I'm trying to think." "Think about what?" "About joining the military," I lied, closing my eyes again. My daydream instantly changed to olive drab. I snatch up a rolling grenade, toss it away, and fire off a round, saving my platoon. For my heroism, I'm stationed back in the States and given a job creating a new, sharper design for the military camouflage uniforms. The pattern I create is used universally for uniforms, helicopters, and vehicles. Doris Ann threw her hands behind her head. "When you join the military, I'll have a bedroom all to myself." Just then Willie chased John around the side of the house with a water balloon. John, screaming his head off, climbed over Doris Ann and me and kept running. Willie did the same. "Get out of here!" I shouted, slapping at them as they dashed away. I squeezed my eyes shut. Suddenly a New York gallery owner arrives. She's wearing a black leather pantsuit and love beads with a big peace sign. Happy with this daydream, I smiled to myself. I heard the screen door slam and opened one eye. Mother stood on the porch. As the glider swept back and forth, I could see half of her, then all of her, then halfCassandra King author of The Sunday Wife Fierce is such a remarkable and beautiful book. I couldn't imagine loving it more than Change Me into Zeus's Daughter, but I did.Connie May Fowler author of When Katie Wakes and Before Women Had Wings Fierce is an unforgettable memoir brimming with raw beauty. Barbara Robinette Moss has transcended a hellish past and writes about her journey with unwavering grace, strength, and wisdom.Publisher's Weekly Moss does what you'd expect form a visual artist: she paints pictures with her words. As with her first memoir, she uses the painful stuff of her life and turns it into vhilling, visceral imagery. She mercilessly braids the gruesome beauty of images like this with a hopeful message: survive.Rick Bragg author of All Over but the Shoutin' and Ava's Man With Fierce, Barbara Robinette Moss proves that the lives of real people will carry a book, a good book, and her writing, as always, has grit and beauty and bottom.Silas House author of Clay's Quilt and The Coal Tattoo A powerful and beautiful meditation on addiction and survival, on the healing power of art, friendship, and family. Moss lets her story unfold in economical, poetic chapters that hum with the power of real life. Never sentimental but always life-affirming, Fierce is an amazing look at one single mother's fight to make the best life she can for her and her son.From the award-winning author of "Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter" comes a plainspoken memoir about a single mother determined to build an artistic career and support her son while leaving behind the emotional scars of a difficult childhood.From the award-winning author of Change Me into Zeus's Daughter comes this compelling memoir about a single mother determined to break the patterns that she has been taught. Barbara Robinette Moss grew up in the red clay hills of Alabama, the fourth of eight children, in a childhood defined by close sibling alliances, staggering poverty, and uncommon abuse at the hands of her wild-eyed, charismatic, alcoholic father. In Fierce, Moss looks at what happens when a child of such a family grows up. At once poetic and plainspoken, Moss, a "powerful writer" (Chicago Tribune), paints a vivid, moving portrait of her persistent quest to reinvent her life and rebel against the rural indigence, addiction, and broken dreams she inherited from her parents. With warmth, insight, and candor, Moss tells the poignant story of finally leaving everything she knew in Alabama to fulfill her ambition to become an artist. It is an odyssey filled with gritty improvisation (bringing her son, Jason, to her night job to sleep on the floor), bittersweet pragmatism (filling her purse on a dinner date with shrimp, rolls, and even a doily, to bring home to a waiting eight-year-old), and staunch conviction and pride (chasing a mail carrier down the street to defend her use of food stamps). As with many other children of alcoholics, the legacy of her father's alcoholism catches up with Moss, and an abusive relationship -- an inheritance and addiction of its own sort -- threatens to destroy all that she has accomplished. But as Moss learns to cope with her anger and pain, parenthood helps her discover true strength. Ultimately, Fierce is a warm, honest, and triumphant story, from a writer celebrated for her Southern lyricism, about a woman determined to make it on her own -- to shrug off the handicaps of her childhood and raise her son responsibly and well."Barbara Robinette Moss grew up in the red clay hills of Alabama, the fourth of eight children, in a childhood defined by close sibling alliances, staggering poverty, and uncommon abuse at the hands of her wild-eyed, charismatic, alcoholic father." "In Fierce, Moss looks at what happens when a child of such a family grows up. At once poetic and plainspoken, Moss paints a portrait of her persistent quest to reinvent her life and rebel against the rural indigence, addiction, and broken dreams she inherited from her parents." "As with many other children of alcoholics, the legacy of her father's alcoholism catches up with Moss, and an abusive relationship - an inheritance and addiction of its own sort - threatens to destroy all that she has accomplished. But as Moss learns to cope with her anger and pain, parenthood helps her discover true strength."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights ReservedElle Heartbreaking, rough, raw. Fierce is a plainspoken memoir about Moss's struggle to make a life as a single mother and the daughter of an alcoholic.Fiercecaptures the author's journey from being a victim of chance to becoming a fighter for happiness.