The Book
Jia's powerful memoir takes the reader back to the seventies and the challenges of a young adolescent girl, the eighth born of ten children. Raised by a schizophrenic mother and an angry father, she gives an inside look into the Apple home where the neighbors might hear the sounds of family prayers and then the screams from beatings...all in the same night.
Dennis Apple, M. Div, author
Dennis Apple, M. Div, author
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"My sister Judy calls me a miracle. She puts her hands on my face and gets this faraway look in her eyes like she isn't telling me everything she knows and she is just about to cry. Sometimes she does cry a little but then she stops. She does this because her heart is good and full of love, and she knows the truth about our lives at home." |
"Dad is the big bad and the big good. He throws things, he feeds us, he beats us, he dresses our wounds. And each day we live, we don't know if he is going to kill us or save our lives." |
"There are times when I think all of us were put in this family like it is some kind of furnace... The Apple house is like that. It is an oven that is used to cook Apples...but it isn't a pie that’s baking, it’s ten kids." |
