An Only Child and Her Sister

A Memoir

By: Casey Maxwell Clair

Narrated by: Donna Postel

Casey and her little sister, Christine, started off with what looked like a good beginning. But looks can be deceiving. Their mother, Eve Whitney, a stunning Hollywood beauty, didn't much care for children. Their father, Eddie Maxwell, was a successful songwriter and gag man; he was a brilliant, handsome, hugely charismatic man, but he had a secret drug habit that sent him careening between warm and loving parent one day, to hair-trigger monster the next.

If Casey got only sporadic moments of love and caring, Chris got nothing. Neither Eddie nor Eve ever had a kind thought for their youngest child. And so the sisters were forced to find their own paths through this horrific excuse of a childhood, each making choices that pulled them farther and farther apart when the one thing they needed was each other.

Told without an ounce of self-pity or bitterness, this story is unique as well as universal. The scenes of pain and incredible neglect live side by side with amazing moments of humor, courage, and triumph.

Contains mature themes.

For more information on the author and her work, visit caseymaxwellclair.com.

©2016 Casey Maxwell Clair (P)2020 Tantor

Positive spin on her childhood

I loved the story and the humor amidst hardship. The ready did a good job and I couldn’t stop listening. Finished the book in two sittings.

An amazing story

This was a wonderful book and wonderful writer. I am sharing it with my 17-year-old son to show him what he can do even though you think that your life is very small you can expand it and do those things that you don’t think you can do. Thank you for sharing this with us.

Incredible resilience

What a journey! Being born in the 70s I can understand how biased people can be, but hearing the author’s experience with the school system, social services, and community is absolutely shocking. Thank you for being vulnerable enough to share your story. So incredible to see from where you started to where you are today. Loved your book. Thank you.

Outstanding

I felt that the book was beautifully written and engaging and the narration was wonderful.

Excellent Narration

The narration made this story all the more real. You could feel how uninterested the world around was to this character. Thank you so much to the author for sharing this. Very relatable and inspiring

Excellent

There wasn't a dry moment in this book from start to finish.
Well written, well narrated.
The end gives me a lot of hope!

Tough story of growing up with dysfunctional parents

This memoir is written with such incredible fortitude. Casey Maxwell Clair’s inspirational humour and determination to succeed in her life is exceptional, her forgiveness eternal, the narrator’s voice was perfect.

A Dysfunctional & Unconventional Family's Story

I loved this book from start to finish. I highly recommend it. It's a poignant story of a daughter and the most important people in her life. It is a meaningful and familiar, but not predictable story. A good solid read!

Unexpected Therapy Session

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting into when I started this book, finding myself quickly relating to similarities and understanding the struggles of being an adult trying to cope with childhood trauma. Getting insight into things that hadn’t occurred to me yet, and validation for the things I had already been treading through. By the end of the book, I found myself shedding tears and smiling about the raw truth and understanding from someone who went through a difficult childhood, different than my own, but just as real.

Inspiring tale of survival

Both fascinating and revolting, this is an almost unbelievable tale of survival. When I say "almost unbelievable", I mean it, too. What Clair went through in her youth is a good example of how truth is often stranger than fiction, and her triumph over her adversities is the stuff of outlandish movies, which ironically is the world in which she grew up--Hollywood of yesteryear. Much of her tale of childhood neglect is unbearably heart-breaking, especially the side story about her poor sister.

My emotions were all over the place but mostly hovered over shock, sorrow, and horror. I also found it difficult to listen to her spin her parents' narcissism and neglect into something positive. While I knew she was trying to draw what good from them that she could without going so far as to excuse them, I had a hard time accepting some of it as an outsider looking in. Overall, though, the whole memoir is a reminder of how important love, kindness, nurturing, and parental self-sacrifice are to the healthy development of a human being. May similarly awful parents read this book and get the wake-up call they need to make changes and save their children before it's too late!

As a side note, the narrator was excellent; I often forgot she was a hired actress, not the author herself.