INCORRIGIBLE

A woman recalls her troubled formative years in this second volume of an autobiography.

Adamson’s debut memoir, Mother Load(2019), described gun crime, drug use, and her road to sobriety. In it, she discussed how her father kept her mother’s suicide a secret from her when she was young. This sequel focuses on the author’s coming-of-age in Santa Monica, California, and how her upbringing affected her life. On discovering her father’s secret, Adamson reveals that rage took over her life. At the age of 14, she slit her wrists and spent three months in a mental institution. She later describes running away from home and being ruled “incorrigible” by a judge, which meant that she was sent to juvenile detention. The author also explains her journey into addiction, from the confidence given to her by alcohol to her introduction to heroin. There are few moments of happiness in Adamson’s story, but her experience of the 1973 countercultural Rainbow Festival offered a moment of respite and hope that would play a part in her getting sober in later life. Readers of the author’s previous memoir will be familiar with her no-nonsense prose. Her approach here is equally direct, skewering complex emotional states: “Sometimes it felt like Mom had planted dark parts of herself inside me, and I was left with the task of figuring out what was her, and what was me.” Adamson is also a thoughtful writer, noticing how the lives of others diverge from her own. Regarding a cop who arrested her, she notes: “She wasn’t much older than me and there she was upholding the law, while I was breaking it.” The author is occasionally prone to repetition, particularly in her imagery. For instance, she refers to the “red cherry” flicker of a cigarette on more than one occasion. Her description of a Southern Black woman having “coffee bean skin” also proves uncomfortable. Still, this is another powerful narrative from Adamson that examines how issues of delinquency and addiction are connected to mental health and personal circumstances. Those who appreciated the author’s first book will immediately reconnect with Adamson’s punchy style and draw further inspiration from learning more about her odyssey.

A vivid, boldly written account of a woman’s difficult youth.