Overview

Desperate to find respite from her father's verbal abuse, his various affairs, and her step-mother's psychological torment, Gina spent hours doing Jane Fonda's workouts, smoked cigarettes instead of eating food, and became obsessed with her thinness... with the notion of fading away. She found solace in restlessness-drinking hallucinogenic mushroom tea and inhaling crushed pills and powders-perching herself on the periphery of danger again and again. Gina soon glimpsed a better life for herself when her grandfather, a man who was a surrogate father to her, became terminally ill. She soon fell in love with John, a stranger who was utterly familiar, but who was addicted to heroin. She moved from New Hampshire to California, crossing the country in an attempt to alleviate her self-destructive tendencies, but found herself pulled back to New Hampshire, to John, a man with whom, despite his struggle, she could not deny the sense of home she felt. What would it cost for a girl to run wildly and recklessly into womanhood, making instant, temporary homes?

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9781925965483

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"""A father's serial impropriety marked Gina Troisi's childhood and led to a maze of self and soul abuse, but don't think for a minute that this is a story illuminated by anything dimmer than the brightest constellation. I leave these pages so grateful for this story, for the author's bravery and honesty, and for this stunning illustration of how writing can carry us through."" Suzanne Strempek Shea, Author of Songs from a Lead-Lined Room ""The psychological abuse Troisi endured as a child had my fists clenching in rage. It is almost a relief when she at last finds escape-in drugs, in codependent love, on the open road. But this is a story of powerful recovery in the truest sense of the word, the journey of a woman who reclaims a sense of home in the sanctity of the self."" Domenica Ruta, New York Times Bestselling Author of With or Without You ""There's an element of the mythic in Gina Troisi's memoir: the evil stepmother, the father with misplaced family loyalties, the daughter whose light eventually shines. Except here the tale-as with much of real life-is riddled with addiction, both substance and sexual. And the heroine is far more likely to wear broken sandals than crystal slippers. Unlike Cinderella, Troisi's journey to royalty (read sanity and acceptance) isn't magical; it's slow and hard-won. The story isn't less miraculous for that, but more so."" Sue William Silverman, Author of How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences ""In prose both lucid and visceral, Gina Troisi chronicles her progress through a very harsh landscape, one marked by casual cultural horrors and punishing intimate ones, the effects of conceit, emotional numbness and addiction on the part of others-a parent, step-parent, lover-that can entangle a caring person in pointless love and profound confusion. The narrator is remarkably honest about what she suffered and learned but also how she kept a thread of herself alive. How she comes through is inspiring in the basic sense-spirit making her whole, spirit finding itself in words."" Baron Wormser, Author of Songs From a Voice and The Road Washes Out in Spring ""Gina Troisi takes a reader so deep into the waters of desire and regret that you see how easily one can drown. We watch almost-drowning, and we watch the difficult retrieval of a life. This memoir of childhood suffering and the multitude of ways (drugs, alcohol, and love affairs) to avoid the resulting life-long pain is not just intelligent, honest and engaging; it is orchestrated like a song through the depths and back up to the high, light notes. It is one person's roadmap toward wisdom, not as a lesson but as a testament."" Fleda Brown, Author of Flying Through a Hole in the Storm ""The trauma of parental neglect and step-maternal manipulations leads the narrator into self-sedation with drugs and alcohol, a series of dangerous relationships, and geographic instability. She becomes a self-punitive divided self. But the writer self and the traumatized self find unity in writing. At home, she discovers something rather than nothing."" Joan Connor, Author of How to Stop Loving Someone ""At once deeply personal yet pulsing with the universally familiar aches of love and longing, The Angle of Flickering Light brings us into Gina Troisi's moving search for identity and belonging. In fourteen essays that wrest meaning from a youth and young adulthood irrevocably shaped by her father's infidelity, her grandfather's death, and her lover's heroin addiction, Troisi shows us that-even after we've been unmoored-it's possible to reimagine who we are, and redefine what it means to come home."" Tim Hillegonds, Author of The Distance Between"

A father's serial impropriety marked Gina Troisi's childhood and led to a maze of self and soul abuse, but don't think for a minute that this is a story illuminated by anything dimmer than the brightest constellation. I leave these pages so grateful for this story, for the author's bravery and honesty, and for this stunning illustration of how writing can carry us through. Suzanne Strempek Shea, Author of Songs from a Lead-Lined Room The psychological abuse Troisi endured as a child had my fists clenching in rage. It is almost a relief when she at last finds escape-in drugs, in codependent love, on the open road. But this is a story of powerful recovery in the truest sense of the word, the journey of a woman who reclaims a sense of home in the sanctity of the self. Domenica Ruta, New York Times Bestselling Author of With or Without You There's an element of the mythic in Gina Troisi's memoir: the evil stepmother, the father with misplaced family loyalties, the daughter whose light eventually shines. Except here the tale-as with much of real life-is riddled with addiction, both substance and sexual. And the heroine is far more likely to wear broken sandals than crystal slippers. Unlike Cinderella, Troisi's journey to royalty (read sanity and acceptance) isn't magical; it's slow and hard-won. The story isn't less miraculous for that, but more so. Sue William Silverman, Author of How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences In prose both lucid and visceral, Gina Troisi chronicles her progress through a very harsh landscape, one marked by casual cultural horrors and punishing intimate ones, the effects of conceit, emotional numbness and addiction on the part of others-a parent, step-parent, lover-that can entangle a caring person in pointless love and profound confusion. The narrator is remarkably honest about what she suffered and learned but also how she kept a thread of herself alive. How she comes through is inspiring in the basic sense-spirit making her whole, spirit finding itself in words. Baron Wormser, Author of Songs From a Voice and The Road Washes Out in Spring Gina Troisi takes a reader so deep into the waters of desire and regret that you see how easily one can drown. We watch almost-drowning, and we watch the difficult retrieval of a life. This memoir of childhood suffering and the multitude of ways (drugs, alcohol, and love affairs) to avoid the resulting life-long pain is not just intelligent, honest and engaging; it is orchestrated like a song through the depths and back up to the high, light notes. It is one person's roadmap toward wisdom, not as a lesson but as a testament. Fleda Brown, Author of Flying Through a Hole in the Storm The trauma of parental neglect and step-maternal manipulations leads the narrator into self-sedation with drugs and alcohol, a series of dangerous relationships, and geographic instability. She becomes a self-punitive divided self. But the writer self and the traumatized self find unity in writing. At home, she discovers something rather than nothing. Joan Connor, Author of How to Stop Loving Someone At once deeply personal yet pulsing with the universally familiar aches of love and longing, The Angle of Flickering Light brings us into Gina Troisi's moving search for identity and belonging. In fourteen essays that wrest meaning from a youth and young adulthood irrevocably shaped by her father's infidelity, her grandfather's death, and her lover's heroin addiction, Troisi shows us that-even after we've been unmoored-it's possible to reimagine who we are, and redefine what it means to come home. Tim Hillegonds, Author of The Distance Between

Author Information

Gina Troisi's work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Fourth Genre, The Gettysburg Review, Fugue, and elsewhere. Her stories and essays have been recognized as finalists in several national contests, including the 2020 Iron Horse Literary Review Trifecta Award in Fiction, the 2018 New Letters Publication Award in Fiction, American Literary Review's Creative Nonfiction Contest, 2018, and others. She has taught classes and workshops in both traditional and nontraditional settings, including writing workshops for female adult survivors of sexual assault. She lives in coastal Maine. Find out more about her at gina-troisi.com

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