Vendor
	Foundry Claire Harris
Original language
English
Categories
Memoirs

BURN DOWN THE GROUND

Kambri Crews

In this powerful, affecting, and unflinching memoir, a daughter looks back on her unconventional childhood with deaf parents in rural Texas while trying to reconcile it to her present life one in which her father is serving a twenty-year sentence in a maximum-security prison.

As a child, Kambri Crews wished that she'd been born deaf so that she, too, could fully belong to the tight-knit Deaf community that embraced her parents. Her beautiful mother was a saint who would swiftly correct anyone's notion that deaf equaled dumb. Her handsome father, on the other hand, was more likely to be found hanging out with the sinners. Strong, gregarious, and hardworking, he managed to turn a wild plot of land into a family homestead complete with running water and electricity. To Kambri, he was Daniel Boone, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ben Franklin, and Elvis Presley all rolled into one. But if Kambri's dad was Superman, then the hearing world was his kryptonite. The isolation that accompanied his deafness unlocked a fierce temper a rage that a teenage Kambri witnessed when he attacked her mother, and that culminated fourteen years later in his conviction for another violent crime.

With a smart mix of brutal honesty and blunt humor, Kambri Crews explores her complicated bond with her father which begins with adoration, moves to fear, and finally arrives at understanding as she tries to forge a new connection between them while he lives behind bars. BURN DOWN THE GROUND is a brilliant portrait of living in two worlds one hearing, the other deaf; one under the laid-back Texas sun, the other within the energetic pulse of New York City; one mired in violence, the other rife with possibility and heralds the arrival of a captivating new voice.

Available products
Book Published 2012-02-01 by Villard Books/Random House
Book Published 2012-02-01 by Villard Books/Random House

Comments

"BURN DOWN THE GROUND "a remarkable odyssey of scorched earth, collateral damage, and survival." Read more...

" ...this is no 'poor me' story. Crews describes a close-knit deaf community that formed (without the internet!) and took care of its members, as well as a family that was fiercely loving, if highly unconventional. She gradually comes to terms with the truth that her charismatic father is not the perfect man she idolized as a kid, but her love for him - brutally destructive faults and all - remains intact."

"Crews’ account...is as well-paced and stirring as a novel. In her fluid narrative (she’s also a storyteller on the side, a gig that helped her develop this book), Crews neither wallows in self-pity nor plays for cheap black-comedic yuks. Instead, this book stands out for what matters most: Crews’ story, bluntly told."

"From page 1 of Kambri Crews' memoir, "Burn Down the Ground," I was hooked. Kambri instantly transported me into the world of the little girl who was forced to grow up before her time, and who blossomed into an amazing writer, storyteller, and human being. The world she writes about is portrayed so vividly and the characters drawn so fearlessly that I feel like I knew what it was like to grow up in Kambri's world - a world most of us could not fathom. Kambri Crews possesses a unique voice among authors, and I consider myself lucky to have been given a glimpse into her world. It is one I will never forget."

“A New York publicist and producer’s unsparing yet compassionate account of her dysfunctional childhood and the father who both charmed and victimized her family…Poignant and unsettling.”