Halfborn woman

A poignant, breathtaking debut, Halfborn Woman is the story of Arlen, a painfully observant girl who comes of age in early '70s Tampa, Florida. When Arlen's charming rogue of a father walks out on the family, everything changes, and her mother, Olivia, a woman whose passion and insecurity make her difficult in the best of times, now rides a terrifying slide between depression and rage. Arlen is left to play handmaiden and cheerleader to a woman who, feeling brutally rejected, now rejects her. Only in tthe aftermath of one of her mother's increasingly frequent beatings can Arlen find something like the love she's been denied, finally cradled in Livvi's apologetic arms. Nor can she find any real support in the new life her father has created for himself and the irredeemably banal trophy wife he's picked up. And, trying desperately to make her way between these two worlds, Arlen finds herself ever more lost.