The Difficult Girl: a memoir

THE AUTHORS father was the editor-in-chief of Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia when he met her mother at a burlesque club. She was 20 years younger and a headliner there. They soon married and went on to have three daughters, moving to Palm Beach and buying a house that once belonged to Robert Believe It or Not Ripley. The family appeared to have it all in the famous Florida town, but the reality was very different. Behind closed doors, the Morse family was troubled. The Difficult Girl describes a family damaged by past wounds and ongoing misfortune, impossible to escape despite their circumstances. Mental illness and utter heartbreak were an ever-looming specter. The book ends in tragedy but with a bittersweet resolution.