THE CHILD I LEFT BEHIND

McGoldrick discusses overcoming a tragic childhood to build a successful career and the struggle to repair her damaged family in this memoir.

Anjalia, originally called Angel, was born into a large family in Cincinnati, Ohio. When she was 9, her parents split up, and she moved with her mother and younger brother to Detroit. There followed years of poverty, chaos, and trauma as her young mother struggled with an abusive boyfriend. Desperate to escape her home life, Angel became pregnant at 13 and moved in with her violent, controlling boyfriend. At 16, she escaped the cycle of poverty and abuse by setting out to get an education and start a career; to do so, she had to leave her 2-year-old daughter with her ex and his mother. Years later, Angel, taking the name Anjalia, had earned multiple degrees, built multiple businesses, and enjoyed a loving relationship with her husband, Tom—yet her relationship with her daughter, Lea, remained fraught as Lea became an adult and had a daughter of her own (“I couldn’t stand to be around her or talk to her out of feelings of anger and resentment”). Anjalia looked inward to learn how the trauma of her past affected her relationships in the present. The strength of this memoir is McGoldrick’s unflinching honesty and her clear-eyed perspective on the roots of her suffering that led to her unwittingly hurting the people she loved the most. She forgives herself, but she doesn’t excuse herself; this level of insight only comes after years of emotional labor, something that would be evident even if the author hadn’t devoted chapters to describing the work she did on herself. The second half of the book suffers from pacing issues as McGoldrick races through the late 1980s and ’90s. Though she spends a bit too much time summarizing her conclusions at the end, many readers will relate to her grappling with generational trauma.

A resonant story of hitting rock bottom and looking for ways to undo cycles of pain and trauma.