Crawling Out of My Skin
 William Alton
 (Associate Reviewer - Donald D'Haene)
 2002 Xlibris Corporation
  ISBN: 1401043089
Amazon's price is: $20.99

True-life story of surviving sexual abuse through his journey of mental illness, drug addiction, homelessness & prostitution.

Associate Reviewer Donald D'Haene writes:

“Some things never go away.” So writes William Alton in his shocking new memoir of surviving physical & sexual abuse as a child in Oklahoma & Eastern Washington.

Little wonder. With memories of sucker-punch acknowledgements from ‘Dad,' witnessing his mother being repeatedly raped, & experiencing the personal attention of a pedophile called ‘Uncle Harold.'

Imagine all that happening before your first day of school!

While Alton is brutally honest, there is a surreal, detached quality to his story telling.

“I don't remember much about my folks being married. What I do remember is the noise, the sound of flesh on flesh, of bruises rising, of bones breaking. Violence is its own language, vague and confusing, but a language all the same. Just because I hit you does not mean I don't like you, that I don't love you.” Page 16.

While some might consider Crawling Out of My Skin a slim bio (128 pages), it deals with only a portion of the author's young life. More important, it showcases Alton's refreshing new voice in the angst-ridden memoir genre. Frankly I'm tired of reading cheap, psycho-babble analysis-filled memoirs of life with daddy. Don't tell me how I should view your experience. As Frank Angela's Ashes McCourt recently said, “Just tell the damn story!”

Alton does. & how! Drug addiction, turning tricks for booze & cigarettes, lock-up visits to mental institutions, sex, abortion, death. This memoir is chock full of the degradation too many victims experience & few in our society comprehend & understand.

I hope Crawling Out of My Skin will be read by educators, social workers, law enforcement, politicians -- all people who are faced with a current generation of Alton-like victims.

I have read many books on dysfunctional, abusive families, but I have never read such a naked, fierce & honest depiction:

“When I was done, I fell over, panting and gasping. Nothing like hurling to wear a body out. I knew I should get up. I knew that if the cops brought me home again, Momma was going to s*@t three colors...I was so tired and so comfortable that even the smell of vomit and dust didn't bother me any. So I lay there a while watching the red and green ghosts, the sunlight painted on the inside of my eyelids and listened to the dull buzz exhaustion makes when you finally get a chance to stop moving.” Page 58.

This memoir is as raw as Alton is street-smart. I couldn't put it down. Readers will be happy to know, Alton is currently working as a teacher & living with his wife & three sons in Portland, Oregon. They will also count their blessings that they never had to live a day in William Alton's shoes.

William L. Alton grew up in Oklahoma & Eastern Washington. Crawling Out of My Skin is his first book. He has written a number of plays that have been produced by a theatre company he helped found in 1989. His poetry & fiction has appeared in The Pacific Review.
(01/19/03)

Donald
2003©Donald D'Haene
A RebeccasReads.Com Associate Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
My most important work to date is my memoir, Father's Touch [Author web site: www.fatherstouch.com] Do check out Rebecca's Interview with me.

I have been freelance writing since 1988. My short stories can be found in The Good Life (2000) & Memories of Elgin and Middlesex(2000). I am also an actor with Armstrong Talent in Toronto, Canada.

I live in London, Ontario, with my partner, Maurice, my mother, & our three Siamese cats, Kyle, Bach-Pierre, Maxine & a cockatiel, Jay.