A young mother tucked her three-week-old daughter into a drawer in a Hollywood motel room before leaving for the night. A police detective would lift the baby out again, after the mother was murdered. In the opening scene of Kelly Grey Carlisle's memoir, We Are All Shipwrecks, an eight-year-old Kelly meets that detective for the first time, having just learned how her mother died. It sounds like a sensational beginning, but Carlisle's measured, wondering tone allows the reader, like the author's child self, to meet each disorienting new situation with curiosity rather than a sense of spectacle.
Kelly was raised by her maternal grandfather and his much-younger wife, whom she calls Daddy and Mommy. They own a pornography shop near the Los Angeles airport, and for many of Kelly's formative years, they live on a boat in a marina. Their neighbors are unglamorous down-and-outs, and Kelly is wracked by how normal her childhood isn't. But in her reflections on the page, she realizes that the adults who surrounded her in her youth played various parts in her unconventional upbringing; many of them were loving, positive figures. As she matures and learns more about her grandfather and Marilyn--the nearest to parents that she'll ever know--Kelly persists in wondering about the mother she lost.
We Are All Shipwrecks is a personal history, a commentary on the experiences of childhood (uncertainty, pain, possible acceptance) and an investigation into what creates us. Readers who appreciate thoughtful memoirs will be charmed by Carlisle's generosity and easy, open reflections. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia