Wreck: a very anxious memoir

“Graham Greene writes that, “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.” For Kelley Jo Burke that moment comes when, sitting on a rock near her grandparents’ cottage, she sees the Nubble, the lighthouse that she ‘believes will look after me, and that was as it should be.’ The author is less than two years old then, but she will spend the next decades of her life, a life strafed by the pain of loss and fear, searching for a beacon that will, like the Nubble, mark the dangers hiding along the coastline and lead her to a safe harbour. ‘Hope’, the last spirit in Pandora’s Box , is lost. The shining beacon that will lead her past danger to the place she can call ‘home’ does not exist on this rocky shore. But just as the author reaches her nadir, she learns the lesson she was meant to learn all along. Read this book. You’ll be very grateful you did.”

“I am sure there has never been a family member who has heard the words, “I’m writing a memoir!” who has cheered, “finally, someone will tell the world about our messed-up family. I’m pre-ordering a hundred copies!” But memoirs are the stories that don’t care that they are not wanted; they are needed. Because a good memoir reminds you that family is love except when it is pain and longing for love. And a good memoir reminds you that you are not alone. Like a lighthouse in the fog, Kelley Jo Burke’s poignant and powerful novel shines a light in the darkness and leads you safely home.”