Change Me into Zeus's Daughter
A Memoir
By Barbara Robinette Moss
(Scribner, Paperback, 9780743202190, 320pp.)
Publication Date: July 31, 2001
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover
Categories: Adult Children of Alcoholics, Childhood Memoir, Specific Groups - General
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Change Me into Zeus's Daughter is a haunting and ultimately triumphant memoir about growing up poor and undaunted in the South. With an unflinching voice, Barbara Robinette Moss chronicles her family's chaotic, impoverished survival in the red-clay hills of Alabama. A wild-eyed, alcoholic father and a humble, heroic mother along with a shanty full of rambunctious brothers and sisters fill her life to the brim with stories that are gripping, tender, and funny.
Moss's early fascination with art coincides with her desire to transform her "twisted mummy face," which grew askew due to malnutrition and lack of medical care. Gazing at the stars on a clear Alabama night, she wishes to be the "goddess of beauty, much-loved daughter of Zeus." Against all odds, the image of herself surfaces at last as she learns to believe in the beauty she brings forth from inside.
Barbara Robinette Moss, author of the acclaimed memoir Change Me into Zeus's Daughter, is a full-time artist and writer whose awards include the Gold Medal for Personal Essay in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition (1996), the Iowa Authors Award (2000), and the Alabama Authors Award (2002). She lives with her husband in Iowa City, Iowa.
Stewart O'Nan Like Carson McCullers and Lewis Nordan before her, Barbara Robinette Moss makes immediate and intimate her own sad and funny Southern childhood. At once poetic and plainspoken, Change Me into Zeus's Daughter celebrates the wonders -- good and bad -- of discovering the world outside herself and uncovering the even deeper, more secret world of her family.
Jack Davis Vice President/Planning, Chicago Tribune Publishing The reader is witness to stunningly beautiful moments frozen by a remarkable natural writer. This book will hold you with the horror and comedy of a family's survival, and with the control and clarity and passion of the storyteller.
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