TWO THOUSAND MINNOWS: An American Story

About three-quarters into this labored memoir of a difficult childhood, a preteen Leigh looks around the rundown cinderblock house she, her parents and two younger siblings are about to rent. It's the latest in a series of way stations on her dysfunctional family's fruitless cross-country forays between California and West Virginia. "I want to close my eyes until I turn eighteen," she writes. It's no wonder. In her first book, television producer Leigh, the oldest child of an adored mother and violent, alcoholic father, chronicles the years of abuse, near poverty and shameful secrets that fueled her longing to escape. In an early scene, Sandra's father terrorizes her mother until she flees from the house into a cold night without coat or shoes. A few months later, Sandra's mother goes to the hospital to have her fourth child, but returns alone; the baby died, her mother reports, "And I don't ever want to talk about it again." As Leigh and her family continue to search for better luck and a stable life during the late 1960s and early '70s, Sandra focuses on the missing child, and, believing she has another sibling, pursues the question until—as an adult—she makes contact with her sister. Like many stories of survival, Leigh's includes some powerful moments, and she is a sympathetic narrator. Though this long volume lacks the depth and insight of others in the genre (Angela's Ashes and The Liar's Club come to mind), it's likely to offer welcome comfort to readers who endured childhood traumas themselves. (May)