YOU-KNOW-WHO An Alienated Daughter's Memoir

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HER MOTHER AFTER HER PARENTS' DIVORCE WHEN SHE WAS JUST FOUR YEARS OLD FILLS DANA WITH A RELENTLESS NEED TO UNCOVER THE TRUTH. Even when parents divorce, their children are allowed to keep loving both of them. At least that is how it should be. But shortly after Dana's parents split up, her whole maternal family is cast out of her life. Traumatized but afraid to upset her father, Dana obediently goes along with this plan of erasing the past. Over time, her mother becomes a fading memory, an outline in her imagination, etched in colors. Red hair, white skin, the same blue eyes as Dana's. Unable to voice her yearning to have her mother back, or even to ask questions about her, Dana holds on to proof of her mother's existence wherever she can find it. In this harrowing memoir, Dana makes her way through her lonely childhood and teenage years, and through her father's second marriage with the woman she is told to call mother. Dana tries to fill the emptiness left by her mother's absence, but she eventually learns that she must harness the courage to face the truth, whether or not that leads her back to her mother. Editorial Reviews of You-Know-Who "Family custody stories invariably focus on the dramas surrounding real-time battles over children, the tug-of-war syndrome. But what of the long-term effects? And how those effects shape those same children long into adulthood? In YOU-KNOW-WHO, Dana Laquidara chronicles a different kind of trauma, the time-released microbursts that continue to resonate not for years but for decades. The author's mother was exiled from her life when she was just four years old (and the child's life was "cleaved into before and after," as Laquidara so searingly writes), long before academic and legal studies into Parental Alienation had gained traction. It has taken the author a lifetime to process, to understand, to heal. Her journey is one that she recounts with skill and compassion and boundless love."--William J. McGee, author of Half The Child, a novel about child custody and abduction "Dana's book is a moving story of alienation from the child's point of view. It is heartbreaking to see her try to make sense of the trauma she was subjected to as a girl. Everyone who works with children of divorce should read this book so they understand why a child may not 'admit' to wanting to see a beloved parent and how loyalty conflicts can last well into adulthood."--Ginger Gentile, Director of the Erasing Family Documentary and Creator of Reversing Parental Alienation Consulting "This book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the experience of Parental Alienation from the perspective of the child. The author's first-hand account of how manipulation can be used by adults to undeservedly turn a child against a parent they love and intentionally sever familial bonds eliminates any doubt that Parental Alienation is a form of emotional child abuse with life-long impact. I'm grateful this book has been written, because the best chance parents and children affected by alienation have of finding their way back to each other is when those who once had no choice and no voice speak up."Doris Newlun, child advocate and targeted parent Excerpt I don't want to leave. When she returns us to our father after each visit, Amy and I sob and scream, both of us hysterical, clinging to her in the driveway. Our father peels us off of her, his words filled with venom. "See what you are putting them through? They are better off without you. If you love them, then let them go." He says this week after week until the snow has long melted and one Sunday when the sun is shining and I don't need a jacket anymore, she doesn't come for us.