Unspeakable: Surviving My Childhood and Finding My Voice

In this wrenching debut memoir, singer-songwriter Fisher recounts the “mental, emotional, spiritual” as well as brutal physical and sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, Toby Willis. Fisher was the oldest of 12 siblings, who along with their parents performed as the Willis Clan, including regular gigs at the Grand Ole Opry near their home in Nashville, and became reality TV stars. But behind the facade, Fisher writes about the isolation of strict Christian homeschooling that preached subservient roles for women, Toby’s authoritarian rules and violent outbursts, and how the siblings were made to spy on one another. Most horrifyingly, she relays Toby’s sexual abuse of her and later her sisters, which started when she was around three or four years old. With the support of future husband Sean Fisher, she finally summons the strength to leave in her early 20s, and (with therapy) finds her own voice (“Every beautiful and broken part of my story was mine”). After a family friend reports Toby to the authorities, Fisher must reckon with her family and religious community’s resistance to exposure and guilt over her role in keeping the secrets so long. (Toby Willis is now serving a 40-year prison sentence). It’s a painful story, but it’s bravely told, for herself and “other little invisible girls and boys.” [em]Agent: Margaret Riley King, WME. (Nov.) [/em]