KELLY CARLISLE's personal essays have appeared in the New England Review, Salon.com, Ploughshares, and more. She has a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska and lives with her family in Texas, where she is an assistant professor at Trinity University. Follow her on Twitter @ProfKGC.
"""Every so often a book arrives that slaps you like an incoming wave. Powerful, briny and brimming with the flotsam and jetsam of an uncommon life, We Are All Shipwrecks is a dazzling debut. "" - The Dallas Morning News ""Readers who appreciate thoughtful memoirs will be charmed by Carlisle's generosity and easy, open reflections...a wise, contemplative, forgiving memoir by a likable narrator. "" - Shelf Awareness, STARRED review ""Stunningly powerful memoir..."" - BookPage ""We Are All Shipwrecks is a memoir about being adrift and lost on a boat, but also about discovering that we're all more or less adrift, that yearning is a universal condition...readers who appreciate thoughtful memoirs will be charmed by Carlisle's generosity and easy, open reflections...a wise, contemplative, forgiving memoir by a likable narrator. "" - Shelf Awareness ""Rich and complex memoir... Carlisle captivates the reader in this tender, warts-and-all narrative of her attempt to unravel her mother's murder and of the man who helped to create an adventurous, if confusing, childhood for her."" - Publishers Weekly ""Although the initial intrigue in Carlisle's engrossing memoir is that of her mother's murder, quite possibly by the Hillside Strangler, the real story is what came after...Carlisle writes from her current perspective, questioning the implications of a life marked by death from the start and exploring how the adults in her life...shaped who she was and who she became."" "" - Booklist ""A turbulent childhood is accurately rendered in this gritty, raw memoir of Carlisle's family and her search for the truth about her mother's death."" - Kirkus "" A squalid and decadent childhood is accurately rendered in this gritty, raw memoir of Carlisle's family and her search for the truth about her mother's death."" - Kirkus ""Moving and complex, this is an exquisitely written tale of perseverance and unconditional love. "" - Library Journal, STARRED review ""A stunning piece of work - a wrenching, beautiful exploration of the author's struggle to solve the mystery of her mother's murder. "" - Fourth Genre"