Reviews and Praise for This Never Happened
Like an archaeological dig, Scott's memoir goes in search of the answers to the mysteries of her family. In her quest to uncover the truth, she mines photographs and letters, leaving no one, including herself, unexamined. This is a spare work, alternately heartbreaking and darkly comic. In the end, it's about the struggle to clear away pain to make room for compassion and the challenge of making peace with questions that will never be answered.
“Spare, elegiac, This Never Happened is a mournful and yet reassuring memoir of a family’s dissolution in the wake of a narcissistic mother and a father’s abandonment. Liz Scott writes with warmth and humor, bringing light to even the saddest darkness. This memoir is destined to be a classic. ”
“Liz Scott’s journey into the deep and vast is a journey into family. Who fits where and where is that place just for her. Where do I fit? Where do I belong? Liz takes a pickaxe to her illusions. Family. The deep and vast cavern where we smithy our chunk of coal into a diamond. You will love Liz Scott’s memoir. Run out and buy it.”
Front and center placement of This Never Happened at Powells Books!
“ Liz Scott shares the achingly real struggle to understand her childhood and her narcissistic parents in her hilarious/beautiful/wrenching memoir, This Never Happened. Raging narcissism is the foundation of her confused childhood and continues into her acquiescent adulthood; there is no escape. Told with an unflinching willingness to self-examine, Scott never gives herself a pass on suspect behavior. It’s no wonder Scott eventually becomes a therapist. Told with raw humor, bracing humility, enough anger to light a fire, but ultimately with an abundance of love, This Never Happened is a deeply affecting and satisfying read. Brilliant!”
“Surprising, funny and impossible to put down, Liz Scott’s memoir This Never Happened will break your heart with its calamitous wit and self-awareness. Scott’s elusive pursuit of familial truth and belonging haunts every page. A strange, unforgettable search for meaning.”
“This unflinching memoir is a searing examination of a life lived in the shadow of an unpredictable mother whose past remained hidden even on her deathbed, and whose motives for meanness seemed impossible to pin down. But Scott does just that, and in the process of cracking the code of her mother, it is Scott who breaks open and unfolds in this beautifully honest look at what it means to have compassion, however flawed, for the people who hurt us, and for whom we can never truly know or understand.”
“A remarkable hopscotch through memory and memorabilia to understand how the past shapes one’s present. An irreverent, relatable, compulsively readable creation.”
Reviews for This Never Happened
