Body Leaping Backward

Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood

For Maureen Stanton's proper Catholic mother, the town's maximum security prison was a way to keep her seven children in line ("If you don't behave, I'll put you in Walpole Prison!"). But as the 1970s brought upheaval to America, and the lines between good and bad blurred, Stanton's once-solid family lost its way. A promising young girl with a smart mouth, Stanton turns watchful as her parents separate and her now-single mother descends into shoplifting, then grand larceny, anything to keep a toehold in the middle class for her children. No longer scared by threats of Walpole Prison, Stanton too slips into delinquency - vandalism, breaking and entering - all while nearly erasing herself through addiction to angel dust, a homemade form of PCP that swept through her hometown in the wake of Nixon's "total war" on drugs. 

Body Leaping Backward is the haunting and beautifully drawn story of a self-destructive girlhood, of a town and a nation overwhelmed in a time of change, and of how life-altering a glimpse of a world bigger than the one we come from can be.

©2019 Maureen Stanton (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

This could have been written about me!

While I didn't go the route of substances, this story could very well have been written about my life. The very deep feelings. The silence on hard things. The tough exterior. The lack of self-confidence and esteem...especially in class when the answer is known, but cannot be spoken.
This book, for me, is one giant acknowledgement and the warmest validation to myself. I didn't know I needed it so badly until I heard it out loud.
Highly recommend.

Excellent Read!

An excellent book! A good read for people who were high school students during the mid to late 70’s. It’s about a Suburban family in my hometown of Walpole, Ma. Depicts divorce in those days,drugs, a young womans experiences with growing up. I couldn’t put it down!! Wonderful story about a woman who came full circle. Talented author !! I will be sure to read her next book!!