Acclaimed indie musician and songwriter Orenda Fink delivers a lyrical and moving memoir of a tumultuous childhood with a mother who battled mental illness and addiction.
From her perch on a kitchen stool each night, Orenda Finkâs darkly charismatic mother spins family lore and tells tales of the supernatural powers she wields, insisting that both she and Orenda are magic. By day, Orendaâs childhood is marked by instability and uncertainty. Her family moves from town to town, chasing a fresh start whenever the money runs out. Orendaâs mother insists that she is a witch, and magic is their means of protection from the world outside of their family. Orenda encounters her motherâs magic in all its forms: a crisp $20 bill materializes from nothing when money has run out and a bottle of congealed blood lurks in the closet for unspoken reasons.
When her motherâs substance abuse and controlling behavior crescendo, Orenda escapes to pursue a music career in Birmingham, Alabama, and then storied Athens, Georgia, forming bands Little Red Rocket and Azure Ray. She orbits the family home, always drawn back by her motherâs dark powers and her own need to solve the mystery of whether that claim of magicâor any magicâis real, or merely an expression of mental illness. Orendaâs journey takes her from churches in the American Southâeager to exercise the demons out of herâto even more mysterious practitioners of country magic in the Southeast and beyond.
Finally seeking refuge in Californiaâs high desert, Orenda works to knit together her divided worlds with the help of a Jungian psychotherapist. She is stunned to learn that her mother fits many of the criteria associated with borderline personality disorder, including a sub-type identified by famed thought leader Christine Ann Lawson, known as âThe Witchââan aggressive, dominating figure who operates by fear-driven control, sometimes claiming to wield magic.
Told in spellbinding prose, this memoir of music, self-discovery, and compassion is for anyone who has had to conjure a safe place to call home.