"Couldn't Keep it to Myself"

I was very moved by the book "Couldn't Keep it to myself."
Wally Lamb was talked into giving one lecture to the women
at the York Correctional Institution in Connecticut. At the
end of the lecture one of the women asked if he'd be back.
He hesitated, but couldn't say no. Instead, he said, Yes,
I'll be back in two weeks and you shall write a minimum of
two pages. That shall be your ticket to admission. In two
weeks he returned and the original 30 was pared down to 15,
but each of the 15 had done the assignment. It's not clear
how long he had worked with them before he decided to
self-publish the book. While in New York and talking with
his publisher he told her about the women and the book. She
asked to see what they had written. She read a couple of
stories and said, "shall we publish it?" And so it was
published.

I read the first few stories and was devastated by their
stories. They came from all backgrounds; some from poverty,
others from wealth. The stories had a common theme. Not all
of them, but most of them had been victims of sexual abuse
and those experiences had destroyed their trust of anyone.
Basically it almost seemed inevitable that they would fail
to thrive. Their mothers tended to be weak and yet very
controlling. In one case the parents had divorced and it
was after the divorce that the father raped his daughter.

Having read the first three stories I went to bed and
couldn't get to sleep and when I did get to sleep I had
horrible nightmares. Consequently, I shall not finish the
book nor can I recommend it. It's just too hard.

The positive thing about the book is that most of the women
seem to have gotten out of prison and gone on to have
productive and fulfilling lives.

The other positive thing is that it made me want to write my
own story, but I don't know whether that will actually
happen.