(RNS) — “A preschooler’s hands are the perfect size for razor blades.”That’s the first line of J. Dana Trent’s searing coming-of-age memoir. The book recounts her early life growing up in a trailer in western Indiana with mentally ill parents who roped her into their drug trade, tasking her with chopping marijuana at the kitchen counter and later acting as a lookout on their drug dealing drops.
The memoir, “Between Two Trailers,” is part of a growing genre of books that describe in harrowing detail the abuse and neglect of parents caught in a maze of mental illness and religion.
Trent, a writer who teaches world religion at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina, has written a handful of inspirational books about finding meaning, slowing down and mourning loss.
J. Dana Trent. (Courtesy photo)
This memoir is far more raw and poignant, as she exposes her father’s schizophrenia and her mother’s personality disorders and depressions. The couple met in a locked psychiatric ward in Cincinnati.
Both were devotees of the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the apostle of positive thinking and self-help and one of America’s first televangelists. At age 7, her parents split up, and she followed her mother to North Carolina, where they bounced around from one rental to the next after her mother filed for bankruptcy.
“My father’s mental unsteadiness was obvious and outward,” she writes. “You could look at him and guess how loud the carnival barkers in his head were. But (my mother’s) ups and downs were a crapshoot. As soon as I thought I’d nailed it like a game of gin rummy, she switched strategies.”
RNS spoke to Trent about her turbulent upbringing — both her parents have since died — and how she has healed from the trauma. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Talk a bit about what drew your father both to the Rev. Robert Schuller and to drugs.
He grew up in Dana Community Bible Church, which is a rural church in western Indiana. But his parents’ 1940s and 1950s religion was not the religion he wanted. When he went to college in an effort to avoid the draft in Vietnam, he took on this cult-like persona of a prophet who had actual disciples. That’s when he …
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The memoir, “Between Two Trailers,” is part of a growing genre of books that describe in harrowing detail the abuse and neglect of parents caught in a maze of mental illness and religion.
Trent, a writer who teaches world religion at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina, has written a handful of inspirational books about finding meaning, slowing down and mourning loss.
J. Dana Trent. (Courtesy photo)
This memoir is far more raw and poignant, as she exposes her father’s schizophrenia and her mother’s personality disorders and depressions. The couple met in a locked psychiatric ward in Cincinnati.
Both were devotees of the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the apostle of positive thinking and self-help and one of America’s first televangelists. At age 7, her parents split up, and she followed her mother to North Carolina, where they bounced around from one rental to the next after her mother filed for bankruptcy.
“My father’s mental unsteadiness was obvious and outward,” she writes. “You could look at him and guess how loud the carnival barkers in his head were. But (my mother’s) ups and downs were a crapshoot. As soon as I thought I’d nailed it like a game of gin rummy, she switched strategies.”
RNS spoke to Trent about her turbulent upbringing — both her parents have since died — and how she has healed from the trauma. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Talk a bit about what drew your father both to the Rev. Robert Schuller and to drugs.
He grew up in Dana Community Bible Church, which is a rural church in western Indiana. But his parents’ 1940s and 1950s religion was not the religion he wanted. When he went to college in an effort to avoid the draft in Vietnam, he took on this cult-like persona of a prophet who had actual disciples. That’s when he …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]