NIECY

A heart-wrenching memoir penned by a grieving mother who struggled to come to terms with her daughter’s devastating accident.

Vaughan’s (The True-Life Adventures of Genie and Janny, 2012) 17-year-old daughter Niecy had a way with animals—she’d taken troubled pigs, cats, birds, bugs and even a cougar under her wing. But in 1975, while Niecy was riding her horse, Action, something went terribly wrong. Vaughan watched, in horror, as her child was thrown from the horse, trampled and rendered unconscious. She slipped into a coma, and although Vaughan clung to the hope that her daughter would wake up and become her vibrant self again, waiting for a prognosis was unbearably painful. Like a hazy fever dream, the author alternates between harrowing stories of living in the hospital for months at a time and lush, honeyed memories of her energetic daughter as a child. “Niecy couldn’t be bothered to part her hair straight or tie a proper bow,” Vaughan writes. “She could, however, lasso a running cow, cat, peacock, dog, and often, her sister. She flunked health class but nursed countless baby birds, rabbits, hamsters, and kittens back to life.” As Niecy’s health declined, Vaughan faced the possibility of a life without her daughter and best friend. But with her daughter’s gentle spirit as a guide, the author navigated her way through grief, depression, and perhaps the most difficult task of all, completing her memoir, which took 38 grief-filled years to finish. A palpable anguish colors the book’s narration, and a few passages feel vague and brief, presumably because they were excruciating to write. But in Vaughan’s eyes, Niecy was a hero—a kindhearted, wide-eyed dreamer who changed the lives of everyone she met. Although mothers aren’t typically the most reliable narrators, Vaughan’s homespun tales of Niecy the Famous Kid—the nickname that a giggling Niecy dreamed up for herself while collecting shells with her mom on the beach—are stirring, tender and overflowing with love.

An emotional tribute to an extraordinary 17-year-old girl through the eyes of her biggest fan: her mom.