This Just In… Phoenix by Philippa Mayall

Set in Manchester, UK, Los Angeles, and the center of the narrator’s mind, Phoenix is a compelling memoir that takes the reader through an odyssey of escape. The writing is as raw as the emotions of the narrator, Flip, and the story as gritty as the northern UK city where she was raised.

The book begins with a tragic house fire destroys the life Flip knew. She flees the scene, devoured by guilt and drowning in self-loathing, then leaps into a synthetic existence of mind-altering drugs and alcohol, but before long her pain starts to bleed into her psyche once again.

Flip’s desperate urge to escape takes her 6000 miles from home to Los Angeles, where she is distraught to discover her feelings have come with her, and she soothes them with ever more potent drugs. Flip ends up homeless, living in a car with two other people and two cats, and a new flame is ignited within her. After a violent confrontation with her friends, Flip is forced to enter a drug rehab so she isn’t sleeping on the streets. This is the beginning of her real and most courageous escape.

“This is a memorable book -- beautifully and even lyrically written. At times it is melancholy, at times hopeful, at times shocking, but it is always moving. At times it is even exuberant with the sense of a life lived determined to survive." -- John Rechy, author of City of Night.

You can order Phoenix here. ◊


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