You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know

A True Story of Family, Face-Blindness, and Forgiveness

By: Heather Sellers

Narrated by: Karen White

This is an unusual and uncommonly moving family memoir, with a twist that gives new meaning to hindsight, insight, and forgiveness.

Heather Sellers is face-blind - that is, she has prosopagnosia, a rare neurological condition that prevents her from reliably recognizing people’s faces. Growing up, unaware of the reason for her perpetual confusion and anxiety, she took what cues she could from speech, hairstyle, and gait. But she sometimes kissed a stranger, thinking he was her boyfriend, or failed to recognize even her own father and mother. She feared she must be crazy.

Yet it was her mother who nailed windows shut and covered them with blankets, made her daughter walk on her knees to spare the carpeting, and had her practice secret words to use in the likely event of abduction. Her father went on weeklong “fishing trips” (aka benders), took in drifters, and wore panty hose and bras under his regular clothes. Heather clung to a barely coherent story of a “normal” childhood in order to survive the one she had.

That fairy tale unraveled two decades later when Heather took the man she would marry home to meet her parents and began to discover the truth about her family and about herself. As she came at last to trust her own perceptions, she learned the gift of perspective: that embracing the past as it is allows us to let it go. She illuminated a deeper truth - that even in the most flawed circumstances, love may be seen and felt.

Heather Sellers is the author of the short-story collection Georgia under Water and three books on writing. A poet, essayist, and frequent contributor to O, The Oprah Magazine, the Sun, and other publications, she teaches English at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

©2010 Heather Sellers (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“A powerfully moving account of childhood lost and regained.” (Diane Ackerman, author of The Zookeeper’s Wife)

An interesting read

Informative and engaging perspective on a little known medical condition. The topic proved unique as well as obscure

An absolutely unforgettable memoir

The existence of people with exceptionally good memories for faces has been in the news - the British Underground apparently hires such people to scan CCTV images to identify people of interest for surveillance and security purposes. The author is an example of the extreme other end of the spectrum. It is mind-boggling to follow her ways of coping both before and after she begins to understand that she has no ability to recognize faces. Plus, she describes the craziest, weirdest parents I have ever read about.

Frustrating exploration into rare dysfunction

Interesting read, though I became quite angry at the parents of this woman, parents who had no idea what was going on with her face-blindness, nor had enough interest in her to find out. Then I became angry at the author, who went about her life trying to deal with her disability and with her parents (I would have walked away long ago), with the age-old coping mechanism of denial. I was impatient with her as she tried to muster the courage to tell people, and judgmental of her and her comfort within contradiction - married to someone yet not living with him. I guess I just could not imagine going through life with people thinking I was being rude in not recognizing them, or that I was aloof and detached, and I probably would have told anyone and everyone right from the start of any relationship or contact. I couldn't identify with this woman's denial, and with the stress of trying to live that way.

A Very Interesting 'Read'

I, unlike Pamela, could relate to this woman. Having come from a dysfunctional family myself and knowing how I personally made excuses for my parents, I could understand her reasoning.

There is a lot going on with the family dynamics: the lack of physical affection, the lack of understanding about face recognition (I certainly hadn't heard of it until this book brought it to light) and schizophrenia, the belief that there was something wrong with the author and not her parents (she was conditioned to this thinking from an early age), but still under all the dysfunction, the author felt there was love...as unhealthy as it was. As a child, you just don't know any better and you trust your parents. If you're raised to think this is 'normal' behavior, you do question it as you see how other families relate, but you still make excuses for your family. I was not frustrated with the author for her inability to figure things out quickly. I found her journey to discovery rather fascinating. I wish it hadn't taken her such a long time to open up and talk to others about her inability to recognize them, but with any 'affliction' the owner tends to want to hide it and will often go to great lengths not to give themselves away.

I liked the reader. She gave emotion and developed the characters for me and held me captive to the end. I would read books by this author again and I would listen to books read by the narrator. Overall, I give this book the highest marks. It was not a self pitying account, but rather, it was matter of fact and with enough detail to fully give the listener a good picture of life as it was lived by the three main characters: the author, her mother, and her father.

Wonderfully written, great story, brave memoir

Where does You Don???t Look Like Anyone I Know rank among all the audiobooks you???ve listened to so far?

Top of my list.

What about Karen White???s performance did you like?

felt like she became the author.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes. Despite her troubled and sad childhood, the book is uplifting, honest, and compelling. It is a hopeful, insightful journey. And it's great writing.

Any additional comments?

Unlike one of the other reviewers, I thought that the authors relationship with her parents was understandable, even though they were both mentally ill. Her loyalty to them was an admitted problem and something she got help for and worked through in the end.

A Very Interesting 'Read'

I, unlike Pamela, could relate to this woman. Having come from a dysfunctional family myself and knowing how I personally made excuses for my parents, I could understand her reasoning.

There is a lot going on with the family dynamics: the lack of physical affection, the lack of understanding about face recognition (I certainly hadn't heard of it until this book brought it to light) and schizophrenia, the belief that there was something wrong with the author and not her parents (she was conditioned to this thinking from an early age), but still under all the dysfunction, the author felt there was love...as unhealthy as it was. As a child, you just don't know any better and you trust your parents. If you're raised to think this is 'normal' behavior, you do question it as you see how other families relate, but you still make excuses for your family. I was not frustrated with the author for her inability to figure things out quickly. I found her journey to discovery rather fascinating. I wish it hadn't taken her such a long time to open up and talk to others about her inability to recognize them, but with any 'affliction' the owner tends to want to hide it and will often go to great lengths not to give themselves away.

I liked the reader. She gave emotion and developed the characters for me and held me captive to the end. I would read books by this author again and I would listen to books read by the narrator. Overall, I give this book the highest marks. It was not a self pitying account, but rather, it was matter of fact and with enough detail to fully give the listener a good picture of life as it was lived by the three main characters: the author, her mother, and her father.

What a great explanation of a rare thing.

I wanted to read this book the first time I heard about it. I’m very surprised about some of the reactions people had. This is a wonderful, in depth look at a true experience.

Very Good Read

This is a very interesting book about a very complex subject. The author handles it beautifully, maintaining the reader's interest while entertaining the reader with humor and intelligence. The narrator, Karen White, adds to the overall excellence of the book. The book is unlike any book I've read recently and I highly recommend it.

Interesting, but felt a little long

Any additional comments?

I chose this book because the author has face blindness which I find inherently interesting. (If you don't, then skip this book.) Her paranoid schizophrenic mom and cross dressing alcoholic dad are just bonuses. Sellers is a creative writing professor - and how she got to be anything other than a complete lunatic is interesting as well - although unless she has changed drastically from the point of her life she is describing now (40 ish), I wouldn't exactly say she was normal. Not mind you that normalcy is really required for a college professor. Somehow she managed to get to at least the age of 38 without realizing she had face blindness or her mother was mentally ill and I did get annoyed at how long it took her to catch on to what was so obvious to me. One issue I had was that the face blindness stuff that I find interesting takes so long to get to, and you have to wade through life with these people who drift around the fringes of society. I had the same issue with this book as I usually do with memoirs that I choose due to one interesting aspect of someone’s life. Sure I want to hear about it. But I usually don’t want to hear about it for quite as long as they want to tell me about it. It did tell me everything I wanted to know about face blindness and more, and it was an interesting book. Just felt a little long.