Change Me into Zeus's Daughter: A Memoir

This wonderful book has so many surprises. First among them is the undaunted spirit and strength of a girl who suffers through a hellish childhood and can write beautifully about it without wallowing in regret and elegiac gloom. The humor and apparent lack of bitterness is truly amazing as Ms. Moss relates the horror of an abusive alcoholic father, a numbed but loving mother, and the suffocating poverty of her rural South. This is not a depressive book. And there is no request or undertone for pity. Simply put, this is a must read for those who were moved by Angela's Ashes or similar books. This is America. This is a woman. This is a disadvantaged girl who perservered. To have written this book without a sense of loss or regret is an astonishing feat. The writing is clear and uncomfortably descriptive. You will feel her hunger, pain, fear and shame. And you will learn her incredible ability to cope and triumph. This is a wonderful book.

Writing at its best, is lived rather than read. Occasionally we have the privilege to be drawn into someone's experiences with such power and clarity that we are possessed by their history and translated into it. Barbara Moss' story makes us members of the family as she weaves gripping tales of poverty, alcoholism, sickness and neglect into a book that you can't stop reading. As difficult as the circumstances are, the story is never without hope. The characters are in many ways ordinary and flawed and in spite of that, are amazingly appealing, interesting, funny, and often heroic as they struggle with the situations that compose their existence. In her writing she is able to depict seemingly ordinary events, turning them into the human essences that touch our deepest emotional levels, where we live and laugh and cry and love.

This book, both informative and poignant, is one that I plan to recommend to students in anthropology, education, sociology and to instructors of courses dealing with issues affecting modern family life in America. With her frank, straightforward writing style, the author causes every reader to realize that not all American children have access to the American Dream. This book makes one recognize that it is time for each American to get involved in correcting inequality in the U.S. during the next millenium.

A brilliant depiction of alcoholism, codependence, living with facial disfigurement and grinding poverty for a white Alabama family. Within the squalor, terror, and degradation burn powerful flames of erudition, dignity, and love. This book is astonishingly devoid of self-pity.

and I found the book to be a moving and entertaining memoir. I am sure it will become a bestseller. However; this story does not belong to Barbara alone. It also belongs to her Mother and her seven siblings. I know this because I am the author's sister. When I first learned Barbara was going to write this book I was very uneasy. I had put this life in the past and did not want to re-live it. It was very painful and humiliating. When I received my copy I knew then that I would read it. The book got thrown against the wall many times, once my wonderful husband even took the book away from me because it brought back so many painful memories, some in the book, most that are not, many I had forgotten and did not ever want to remember again. But it also served to remind me of what a special person my mother was. This story is about the determination of one woman who watched all her dreams shatter but remained strong in an era which did not recognize alcoholism as a disease or child abuse as a problem. She was my rock, my best friend and the one person who kept me sane through the madness when I was not even sure I deserved to have a place on this earth. I am sure she is in a special place in heaven where she can forever sing the beautiful music she loved so much because she has already lived through hell on earth. I miss her every day of my life. I cannot speak for my brothers and sisters, but I know that each and every one of us earned the right to be called "survivor". I consider myself to have had two lives, the one I lived before the day my father put that gun to his head and pulled the trigger and the one that started the same day. Because for me that was the day the abuse ended. I was 38 years old. This book is destined to be a bestseller and I am very proud of my sister. I also hope this book will help to make people understand that alcoholism and child abuse are serious problems that exist in every race, society, income bracket and if you know of someone who needs help, don't just talk about, call someone. Love you Barbara