Fiction Ruined My Family

Jeanne Darst

eBook - 2011

"Beautifully paced . . . heartbreaking and hilarious."—USA Today Augusten Burroughs meets Mary Karr: a deeply funny and wickedly entertaining family memoir. The youngest of four daughters in an old, celebrated St. Louis family— of prominent journalists and politicians on one side, debutantes and equestrians on the other— Jeanne Darst grew up hearing stories of past grandeur. And the message she internalized as a young girl was clear: While things might be a bit tight for us right now, it’s only temporary. Soon her father would sell the Great American Novel and reclaim the family’s former glory. The Darsts move from St. Louis to New York, and Jeanne’s father writes one novel, then another, which don’t find publishers.... This, combined with her mother’s burgeoning alcoholism, lead to financial disaster and divorce. And as Jeanne becomes an adult, she is horrified to discover that she is not only a drinker like her... more