Allen Eskens

"Oddly enough, my high school guidance counselor never mentioned the word 'college' in any of our meetings. Maybe she could smell the funk of hopelessness that clung to my second-hand clothing. Maybe she had heard that I started working at a dive bar called the Piedmont Club the day after I turned eighteen. Or—and this is where I'd place my bet—maybe she knew who my mother was and figured that no one can change the sound of an echo."

"As far back as I could remember, my mom had been prone to wild mood swings—laughing and dancing across the living room one minute, throwing dishes around the kitchen the next—classic bipolar from what I understand. Of course that diagnosis was never made official because my mother refused to get professional help. Instead, she lived her life with her fingers in her ears, as though the truth would not exist if she never heard the words spoken aloud. Add to that cauldron an ever-increasing measure of cheap vodka—a form of self-medication that quelled the inner scream but amplified the outer crazy—and you get a picture of the mother I left behind."

- Excerpts from The Life We Bury, by Allen Eskens