Girl hidden : a memoir / by Jesse Rene Gibbs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gibbs, Jesse Rene, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Drama.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (241 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

[London] : [eBook Partnership], [2021]

Summary:

Echoing among the Blue Ridge Mountains were the cries of newborn babies that disappeared into the night. The screams of children nearly drowned out by the sound of crickets. A girl, hidden and waiting to be found, terrified, and confused. The fireflies sparkling in the woods, bringing light to darkled places. The bulk of Jesse's memories were of growing up in the farm country of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. The farm folks stayed pretty much outside of town, except for visits to the feed store causing random tractors to travel down Main Street. There were beatings and abuses, manipulation and terror carried out in spaces breathtaking in their beauty. There were twenty-seven Baptist churches, three non-denominational churches, and one Catholic Church. There were annual Ku Klux Klan rallies on the street where they would walk right by all the black families who came out to watch and the white folks who came out for moral support--whether of the black families or the white, no one knew for sure. Black people did not marry white people in a "civilized society", and so were rarely seen socializing. There was a young woman who was pregnant with a black man's baby, so her parents disowned her. Jesse's family was accused of killing the child and burying it on their property. There was the Berkley House Bed and Breakfast toward the end of town, with gold plated silverware and hardwood floors, rumored to be the local sex worker house. There was a mansion up on a hill that overlooked the other humble houses in the town. In the local cemetery, there was "Will B. Jolly" carved into the graves used by bootleggers back in the twenties. Everyone had some form of thick southern drawl, though the length of the "aw" would extend the further south you went. There was a tiny baseball field and a tinier fire department. There was an old

lady in the foothills that let the family raid her garden during the summer. And in exchange, Jesse's family helped her husband bring in the hay for their animals every year. There was a black snake in the attic--the door opened inside the closet next to Jesse's bed. She would find his shed skins left behind in the summer months measuring close to seven feet in length. There was a creek with crawdads and a moss-covered bridge. There were mulberry and pecan trees that filled her and her siblings' aching bellies as the weather turned. There were hot summer days and freezing cold winters. There were dogs that were best friends, cats that kept her warm at night, and a cow that committed suicide. There was red clay instead of dirt, hayfields instead of grass, and a favorite swimming hole: Lenny's Mill, the local grain mill on a glacier-fed creek where you could take a dip if you were brave enough to challenge the frigid waters. Girl Hidden is the story of an unwanted child, born nonetheless and forced into servitude, desperate to protect her siblings and find her way out from under the vicious, manipulative abuses heaped on her by the one person who was supposed to love her unconditionally: her mother.

Contents:

Intro

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Contents

Prologue

Navy Life

Escape to the City

The First Live Child

Out of the Frying Pan

Just Breathe

Lust-Induced Brain Freeze

Baby

Dial Tone

Heading South

Facing the Monsters

Prudence's Heartbreak

Goin' to the Chapel

The Rockwell House

A Child's Voice

Unraveling

First Kidnapping

Finding Home

Girl Hidden

A Loss of Grace

The Liledoun House

Slow Release

Church is Canceled

The Farmhouse

Dancing in the Emerald City

Life on a Farm is Kinda Laid Back

An Act of Faith

Black and White and Red All Over

How Not to Become a Millionaire

Coming of Age

Meet the Parents

Good Evening, Vietnam

The Three Houses

Not So Much An Epilogue

About the Author.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print record.

ISBN:

9780578988122

0578988127

OCLC:

1376195707