Brenna - Murdering the Mom: A Memoir

Praise forMURDERING THEMOM: A MEMOIR

"Perhaps the most remarkable achievement ofthis remarkable memoir by award-winning novelist Duff Brenna is itshumanity. The characters in this bookhell, it's nonfiction,they're not characters, they're people!do hateful, hurtful thingsto one another. They are lost in their needs, their aberrations,their dreams, their longingtoo lost to take stock of the effect oftheir own behavior upon the people with whom they share their livesand who depend upon them, not least the children who are hostagesto a kind of madness.

Worst among them is Nick Pappastall, dark andhandsome as the narrator's mother likes her men, though also theblowhard, bully, boastful, coward, drunken, narcissistic,womanizing, wife-beating, child-beating, child-molesting stepfatherof the narrator. Yet despite all there is to despise about the man,the reader is acutely aware of him as a human being. Nick Pappas ishuman all too human, as is every character peopling these pages. Wesee their flaws, foibles and failings. We see their humanity in allits fullnesshard working, heartbreaking, sorrowful, tragic,belly-laugh funny at times, pitiful, embarrassing and, yes,occasionally admirable, even loveable, even kind and good-heartedand fun-loving.

"This I think, above all, is Brenna's grandachievement here. He is not settling old scores-and god knows therewere scores he might well have wanted to settle if he'd a mind to.But no, he is exploringunsparingly, unflinchingly, but above allfairly, with balance and breathtaking honestythe humanity of agroup of people born into and continually creating a kind of hellin which they thrash around without a clue as to how to getout."

Thomas E. Kennedy, author of FallingSideways and Kerrigan in Copenhagen

"Duff Brenna is one of the most talented, braveand daring writers of contemporary American letters. InMurdering the Mom: A Memoir, Brenna reaches deep into thedarkest recesses of the human psyche. All too often parents treattheir children, the very ones they're supposed to love most andprotect, with anger and selfishness, violence and neglect, andBrenna, the child, is indeed a victim of circumstance. But Brenna,the man, is not. No one escapes this world unscathed, but inBrenna's case it's something of a miracle, given his upbringing,that this memoir wasn't written from Death Row. With great skill,insight, wisdom, introspection and above all a sense of humanityand forgiveness, a brilliant writer transcends the tragic and turnsthis powerful, raw, heartfelt story into the finest art." JamesBrown, author of This River and The Los AngelesDiaries

"In Murdering the Mom, Duff Brenna notonly provides a searing memoir of how we try to love in anincreasingly heartless America, but invents a savory and snappyidiolect that lets everyday life pass before our eyes all the whilereminding us how extraordinary are its traumas and victories"Nicholas Birns, author of Understanding AnthonyPowell

"Gritty and honest and opening every door tothe heart of the telling. It compels right out of the gate andnever lets up, the momentum sustained in everysentence."

Jack Driscoll, author of The World of a FewMinutes Ago

Praise forDuff Brenna'sFICTION

"Crystal-clear writing Brenna sees with anunflinching eye, but also with measures of love," WashingtonPost Book World

"Brenna is a master at capturing thehelplessness of humans, particularly humans with 'tough' writtenall over them." Los Angeles Times

"Artfully written, evil and eerie" ChicagoTribune

"Master stylist Duff Brenna deftly portrays thecomic and sinister consequences of striving to embody the AmericanDream." Star Tribune-Minneapolis

"Duff Brenna is an American treasure."Bloomsbury Review

[Brenna's prose] is "unfaltering, unflinching,piercing." New York Times

"Duff Brenna displays a spectacular talent forcrafting complex, believable characters." Wall StreetJournal

"vivid characters, rich dialogue andspellbinding narrative." Publishers Weekly

"The sheer energy and humanity of [his story]leaves the reader eagerly awaiting Brenna's next act."Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"funny, disgusting, poignant Duff Brenna hasdone it again." Charleston Post&Courier

"Finely crafted prose coupled with a powerfulstory makes this beautiful book a page turner." San DiegoUnion

MURDERING THE MOM

A Memoir

by

Duff Brenna

Copyright 2012 by Duff Brenna

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

FOREVERLAND PRESS

http://www.foreverlandpress.com

Cover art and design by Kristin Summer (redbatdesign)

Cover & Family Photos: from Pappas familyalbum

Special Thanks to Robert Mast for hisassistance in preparation

of digital conversion of family albumphotos.

Except for principle family members, all othernames have been changed

to protect everyone's privacy.

For

Judge Jean Jacobucci, Brighton,Colorado

&

For the mom

Janice E. Miles

After youth & age, daydream anddebris. Jack Marshall

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The mom was always looking for love. She hadnumerous lovers who came and went in her life, one night stands, afew days or weeks, maybe months. Some she even married. She wasmarried six times. The longest marriage was with her fourthhusband. They were together thirteen years before he died ofcirrhosis in 1975, ten weeks short of his 50th birthday. His namewas George Miles. In looks, he resembled her third husband, NickPappastall, dark, heavily muscled. The two of them might havepassed for brothers. Except that George Miles, a retired San Diegopolice officer, had, for the most part, conquered his dark side.Nick Pappas never conquered his dark side.

George Miles was a decent, supportive, lovinghusband, a source of strength, guidance and wisdom, which wasexactly what the mom neededsomeone to be her keeper. Arational man, a six-foot-two father figure, a man she couldn't ruleor fool. A man she would listen to because she not only loved him,she respected him. Which was something not new, but very rare inher life. Truth is: until George Miles came along, the mom wasambiguous about the male species, dubious, curiously schizophrenic.Cursing them. Adoring them. Cynical about them. Yet time after timeconverted.

She admired manliness, coveted it: ClarkGable/Charlton Heston types, the Victor Mature of Demetrius andthe Gladiators, war heroes like John Wayne. She believed he wonthe battle of Iwo Jima, never knowing her idol had sat out the war"deferred." She wanted men who were broad at the shoulder, narrowat the hip, strong, silent clichs. Admired them, wanted tobethem, but in her heart of hearts they frightenedher. She didn't trust them. She used them, bullied them (if theylet her), tried to morph them into the protectorate Daddies thatwould fill all the needs missing in her life since she was a child.She wanted a man who made her feel safe, secure, loved,cherishedadored. For those thirteen short years, George Milesplayed the part as if he were born for it. He was five years themom's junior, but she called him Daddy as she did all her husbands,all of them Daddy-Daddy. Her real daddy abandoned the family whenshe, little red-haired Janice, was only five. You don't have to beFreud to understand why she needed to be saying Daddy all herlife.

I was talking to a friend of hers (this wasmany years ago; he's dead now, another Alzheimer's victim) who hadknown her in her late-fifties. His name was Shelly. He told me thatmen called her The Black Widow. According to him, Black Widow fitbecause none of her many husbands (four at that time) had survivedher. Shelly also said: Black Widow or not, Janice is riveting. Heopined that she was the most charismatic woman he had ever met inhis life. He recalled once when they were at a cocktail party,talking quietly in a corner, and for some reason (perhaps to addemphasis to something she was saying) Janice reached out andsqueezed his forearm. Her touch was electric! he said. The hairs onmy arm and the back of my neck stood up, he said. He was ready tofall on his knees and worship her. Janice still has that effect onmen, he said.