Don't You Ever: My Mother and Her Secret Son
Written by Mary Carter Bishop
Narrated by Janet Metzger
()
About this audiobook
From a prizewinning journalist, Mary Carter Bishop, a moving and beautifully rendered memoir about the half-brother she didn’t know existed that hauntingly explores family, class, secrets, and fate.
Applying for a passport as an adult, Mary Carter Bishop made a shocking discovery. She had a secret half-brother. Her mother, a farm manager’s wife on a country estate, told Mary Carter the abandoned boy was a youthful ""mistake"" from an encounter with a married man. There’d been a home for unwed mothers; foster parents; an orphanage.
Nine years later, Mary Carter tracked Ronnie down at the barbershop where he worked, and found a near-broken man—someone kind, and happy to meet her, but someone also deeply and irreversibly damaged by a life of neglect and abuse at the hands of an uncaring system. He was also disfigured because of a rare medical condition that would eventually kill him, three years after their reunion. During that window, Mary Carter grew close to Ronnie, and as she learned more about him she became consumed by his story. How had Ronnie’s life gone so wrong when hers had gone so well? How could she reconcile the doting, generous mother she knew with a woman who could not bring herself to acknowledge her own son?
Digging deep into her family’s lives for understanding, Mary Carter unfolds a sweeping story of religious intolerance, poverty, fear, ambition, class, and social expectations. Don’t You Ever is a modern Dickensian tale about a child seemingly cursed from birth; a woman shattered by guilt; a husband plagued by self-doubt; a prodigal daughter whose innocence was cruelly snatched away—all living in genteel central Virginia, a world defined by extremes of rural poverty and fabulous wealth.
A riveting memoir about a family haunted by a shameful secret, Don’t You Ever is a powerful story of a woman’s search for her long-hidden sibling, and the factors that profoundly impact our individual destinies.
Mary Carter Bishop
A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, Mary Carter Bishop was on the Philadelphia Inquirer team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of nuclear leaks at Three Mile Island. Her Roanoke Times & World-News series on poisonings and fraud by exterminators and other pesticide users won a George Polk Award and was a Pulitzer finalist.
Related to Don't You Ever
Related audiobooks
Promise Me: How a Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deathbed Confession: My Son Was A Stolen Baby! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBuddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Secret Child Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Miseries: This Is Not a Story About My Childhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI'm the One Who Got Away: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ruby River Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Myth of Surrender: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Angel Doll: A Christmas Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Imperfect Endings: A Daughter's Tale of Life and Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cracker Queen: A Memoir of a Jagged, Joyful Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Indigo Hill: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Granny Is My Wingman Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Obituary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dog Days Forever: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Traveling with Dogs: From the USA to the UK Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some Maintenance Required Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart of Glass Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Southern Discomfort: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Vet at Noah's Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-City Animal Hospital Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove's Journey Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seashell Season Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Saving Lucy: A Girl, a Bike, a Street Dog Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Child of the Dales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Daughter: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Living With Conviction: Unexpected Sisterhood, Healing, and Redemption in the Wake of Life-Altering Choices Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Personal Memoirs For You
The Woman in Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Down the Drain Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Counting the Cost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night: New translation by Marion Wiesel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals Presents: Good Girl: Notes on Dog Rescue Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Own It All: How to Stop Waiting for Change and Start Creating It. Because Your Life Belongs to You. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pageboy: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: Built for This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If You Would Have Told Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making It So: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See You on the Way Down: Catch You on the Way Back Up! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wishful Drinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Lucy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Taste: My Life Through Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Don't You Ever
0 ratings0 reviews