Body Leaping Backward
Author(s): Maureen Stanton

The mesmerizing … daring and important* storyof a risk-takinggirlhood spent in a working-class prison town
*Andre Dubus III

For Maureen StantonsproperCatholicmother,the towns maximum security prison wasa way to keep her seven children in line (If you dont behave, Ill put you in Walpole Prison!”).But asthe 1970s brought upheavalto America, and the linesbetween good and bad blurred,Stantons once-solid family lost its way. Apromising younggirl with a smart mouth,Stanton turns watchfulas her parents separate and her now-singlemother descends into shoplifting, then grand larceny, anything tokeep a toehold in the middle class for her children.No longer scared by threats of Walpole Prison, Stantontoo slips into delinquencyvandalism, breaking and enteringall while nearly erasing herself through addiction to angel dust, a homemade form of PCP that swept through her hometown in the wake of Nixons total war on drugs.

Body Leaping Backward is the haunting and beautifully drawn story of a self-destructive girlhood, ofa town and a nationoverwhelmed ina time of change, and of how life-alteringa glimpse of a worldbigger than the one we come from canbe.

Review(s):
Ablazingly important memoir about the possibility of change. People Magazine, Best New Books Forget the cult of the bad boy, Maureen Stanton’sBody Leaping Backward makes my skin shiver and my heart pound out a hell yes. Set in the 70s and the coming wave of drugs, a family falls to pieces. The mother descends into delinquency and soon Maureen followsbut this story reminds us how mothers and daughters clawing their way back to life is an epic journey of courage and guts and heart. A triumph. Lidia Yuknavitch, author ofThe Misfits ManifestoandThe Chronology of Water Body Leaping Backward,bursting with radiant storytelling,seamlessly sets Maureen Stanton’s childhood struggles against the unraveling social tapestry that was America in the 1970s. This isapage-turning narrative that illuminates so much aboutherpersonal andourcultural darkest moments. Michael Patrick MacDonald, author ofAll Souls: A Family Story from Southie “The miracle isn’t how Maureen Stanton survived her harrowing adolescence, but how she can write about it with such beauty and clarity. I read this in one heart-in-my-throat sitting.” Monica Wood, author of When We Were the Kennedys and The One-in-a- Million Boy Written with sensual, poetic, and evocative prose, this remarkable memoir is an honest exploration of what it means to come of age in the quiet wreckage of a broken home, when social norms were shifting and it was so very easy to fall perilously between the cracks. A deeply moving, timely, and important memoir. Andre Dubus III, author ofTownieandGone So Long I read Maureen Stantons memoir with respect and appreciation. I am proud and heartbroken at the story shetellsproud that shereached a point where she could write it all down, andheartbroken at how muchcourage and resilience is necessary to survive. Dorothy Allison, author of Two or Three Things I Know for Sure and Bastard out of Carolina A masterful storyteller, Maureen Stanton has written a timeless and timely memoir of an all-American girlhood derailed by drugs and loss, which is both heartbreaking and hilarious.Body Leaping Backwardis a luminous portrait of a family and a country at a crucial moment of change. Important and riveting, this is a wonder of a book. E.J. Levy, author of Love, in Theory and The Cape Doctor An unsparing look at a girlhood that veers off the rails into young adulthood. Sharp, candid, and deeply felt, her story shows the way our upbringings live on in our blood. The Boston Globe Powerful and probing, Stanton’s book offers a sharp portrait of a wayward girl “leaping backward” into disaster. Along the way, she reveals the way individuals are as much a product of time and place as they are of the families to which they belong. A compellingly honest coming-of-age memoir. Kirkus Reviews Engaging . . . this is a great choice for memoir readers and anyone interested in the 70s. Booklist “Memorable and beautiful.” Shelf Awareness “An informative, intelligent read for anyone, young or old, trying to make sense of teenage rebel

ISBN:9781328900234