I'm the One Who Got Away

Jarrell begins her memoir with an account of the tragic murder of her neighbor Susannah, whose death triggers a wellspring of emotion that reminds the author of her own childhood. Jarrell's mother married her father, Nick, while still in high school; he quickly became controlling and abusive, isolating her from her family. When Jarrell is a baby, her mother leaves Nick and scrimps and saves to take her daughter to the theater and to Europe, but Nick is never far away. Jarrell gets to know him in her teens, and his verbal abuse and mercurial moods set her up for some unhealthy life choices. She ultimately marries a man who seems stable and calm, but the relationship is fraught. In Susannah's death, the author sees the future her family might have had if her mother had stayed with her father: patterns that might have resulted in tragic endings for both mother and daughter.