"A gut-wrenching and inspiring story that is very often beautiful." - Stan Wlodkowski, Executive Producer, Eat, Pray, Love.

"Chameleons are able to adapt to their environment and hide in plain sight. They do this in order to survive. Despite times when they are clearly outnumbered or being toyed with, they remain adaptable, still, and resilient, and end up living another day." - Opening

Soon after Mary's father, a beloved preacher in her close-knit Tennessee community, came out as a gay man at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Mary's mother, feeling betrayed and unable to deal with this new reality, embarked Mary and her siblings on a years-long cross-country odyssey -- which would eventually land them in California -- through New York, Nevada, and many other places. It would be thirteen years before she would see her father and kin again.

The four of them lived in their '67 Dodge Dart and survived on handouts, welfare, and soup kitchens. Poverty was a way of life, it was a mindset, and it made living with a facial deformity that much harder for Mary. Her bilateral cleft lip and palate made Mary an easy target for bullies. She developed a way of seeing and dreaming of a way out of her predicament.

The family's existence was the representation of their mother's chaotic mind, which presented itself as neglect, verbal abuse, and poverty. Mary's mother's untreated paranoid schizophrenia manifested in more and more isolation for the children, and her oldest brother was soon cast from the home at just 12 years old.

But Mary always knew this wasn't supposed to be her life. Through the years, she held on to her old life in Nashville; the house, the neighborhood, her swing set in the backyard, and her father.

Mary, a sweet, innocent, and precocious child at the beginning of this adventure, had little idea of the transformation she was about to undergo.

She takes you along for a ride that travels through her most intimate survival experiences. At times, her missteps prepare you for the worst, and even her littlest victories assure you of her brighter future.

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• Print Length: 440 Pages
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