Moss - Change Me Into Zeuss Daughter

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Acclaim for Change Me into Zeuss Daughter

Vibrantly detailed... Mosss coming-of-age tale is a study in chutzpah and a fascinating exploration of a childs love-hate ties to an abusive parent.

Glamour magazine

A vivid, honest memoir about poverty, suffering, and resilience... traces the emergence of a little girl, with a face disfigured by malnutrition, into a women who becomes a powerful writer.

Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune

Heartbreaking... By the conclusion of this remarkable memoir, a marriage behind her and a new son to care for, Moss has changed, and we have been rooting for her every step of the way, sharing her rage and her joy.

The Times-Picayune

Compelling... incredibly dramatic... The Moss family knew the kind of poverty in rural Alabama found in Dorothea Lang photographs. Shocking poverty, poverty that made a sack of seed corn treated with pesticides good enough to eat.

Jacki Lyden, National Public Radio

A Southern autobiography fired in a crucible of poverty and abuse is nothing new in literature, but Moss makes an art of candor, which drives her both powerfully simple narrative and her burning desire to findor makebeauty in a face scarred by a lifetime of malnutrition.

Mike Peters, The Dallas Morning News

Like Carson McCullers and Lewis Nordan before her, Barbara Robinette Moss makes immediate and intimate her own sad and funny Southern childhood. At once poetic and plainspoken, Change Me into Zeuss Daughter celebrates the wondersgood and badof discovering the world outside herself and uncovering the even deeper, more secret world of her family.

Stewart ONan

This elegant and moving memoir is nothing short of an Angelas Ashes for Americans, beautifully written in the female voice. Author Barbara Robinette Moss has Deep South roots, a backbone borne of deprivation overcome, and an inner beauty of the highest order.... The goddess of beauty, it may be said, has nothing on Barbara Robinette Moss.

Ann Prichard, USA Today

TOUCHSTONE

Rockefeller Center

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New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 1999, 2000 by Barbara Robinette Moss

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First TOUCHSTONE edition 2001

Originally published by Loess Hills Books

TOUCHSTONE and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING

Set in Adobe Caslon

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Scribner edition as follows:

Moss, Barbara Robinette.

Change me into Zeuss daughter: a memoir/Barbara Robinette Moss.

p. cm.

. Moss, Barbara Robinette. 2. Adult children of alcoholicsUnited StatesBiography.

I. Title.

HV5132.M67 2000

362.292'3'092dc21

[B] 00-07886

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-0218-3

ISBN-10: 0-7432-0218-X

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-0219-0 (P BK )

ISBN-10: 0-7432-0219-8 (P BK )

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-1950-1 (eBook)

Excerpts from Cant Help Lovin Dat Man, words and music by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. 1927 Universal-Polygram International Publishing, Inc. Copyright renewed. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Performance society [ascap].

Excerpt from Before the World was Made by W. B. Yeats, from The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, Revised Second Edition, edited by Richard J. Finneran, reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster. Copyright 1940 by Georgie Yeats; copyright renewed 1968 by Bertha Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats.

Excerpt from Workin at the Car Wash Blues 1973 Denjac Music Co./Universal Music Publishing Group (ASCAP). Administered by Denjac Music Co. Written by Jim Croce. Reprinted by permission.

Excerpts from poems XII, XXIII, and XXVIII from The Black Riders and Other Lines by Stephen Crane, from Poems and Literary Remains by Fredson Bowers, ed. (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1975) reprinted with permission of the University Press of Virginia.

for my mother, Doris Robinette Moss, with love and gratitude

and in memory of Stewart Karl Moss, Jr. who proved to be as powerful as sunlight.

This narrative is a true account of events, according to my memory. The names of some people and their identifying characteristics have been changed.

If I make the lashes dark

And the eyes more bright

And the lips more scarlet,

Or ask if all be right

From mirror after mirror,

No vanitys displayed:

Im looking for the face I had

Before the world was made.

W ILLIAM B UTLER Y EATS

My intention in writing this book was to go back in timeto heal old wounds and reclaim my family. Too fearful to take on such an adventure alone, I took my friends and loved ones with me.

My kindred spirit and husband, Duane DeRaad, listened to my stories and encouraged me to write them. My son, Jason Freeman, from an early age listened to those same stories with interest and without judgment.

One of my graduate professors said I led a charmed life. I didnt know what that meant until I met M. T. Caen, who became my agentand almost immediately, I was taken under the wings of Susan Moldow, Nan Graham and Sarah McGrath at Scribner. I am astoundedand forever grateful. Mary Swander taught me how to structure a story, and how to be patient. Kate Kasten and Tania Pryputniewicz read acutely, gave indispensable guidance, and made it enjoyable. Ann Wright Au, Ingrid Mazie and Melanie Parks soothed the hurt and reminded me that there is good living to be done. Karman Hotchkiss tenderly edited the first draft.

I am grateful for the support received from Jonis Agee, Michael Carey, Jack Davis, Adrienne Drapkin, Jim Harris, Susan Kratz, Charlie Langton, Shannon Miles, Robert Neymeyer, Joni Russ, Sharon-Ord Warner and Richard Webster.

My aunt, Janet Robinette Smith, rescued me as a child, told me stories about my parents I had never heard before, and encouraged me to publish this book. I am thankful for the telling and re-telling of family stories by my parents, Stewart Karl Moss, Sr., and Doris Robinette Moss, and my siblings, Alice, Stewart, David, Willie, Doris Ann, John and Janet.

The author would like to thank Diane Wakoski for the use of her poem I Have Had to Learn to Live With My Face, from Emerald Ice, Black Sparrow Press.

Birth Order:

Alice Jane

Stewart Karl, Jr.

David James

Barbara Allen

William Riley

Doris Ann

John Patrick

Mary Louise

Janet Lynn

M other spooned the poisoned corn and beans into her mouth, ravenously, eyes closed, hands shaking. We, her seven children, sat around the table watching her for signs of death, our eyes leaving her only long enough to glance at the clock to see how far the hands had moved. Would she turn blue, like my oldest sister, Alice, said? Alice sat hunched next to me in the same white kitchen chair, our identical homemade cotton dresses blending into one. She shoved my shoulder with hers as if I were disturbing her concentration and stared unblinking at Mother. Each time Mother hesitated, spoon in mid-air, Alices face clouded and she pushed against my shoulder.