KooKooLand

"Gloria Norris’ memoir Kookooland describes the violent projects of Manchester, N.H., with its race tracks and drive-ins, con men, rat hunts at the dump, and the river that “sliced through Manchester like a wet, oily knife.” Violence is omnipresent in her own family and those around her. As in a tyranny, in an abusive family you either find small ways to dissent or you rebel and perish, or you decide to survive at all costs. Norris exactly captures the chilly calculus of abuse: What it would cost her to disagree out loud? But what it would cost her to stay silent?"