Live to Tell the Story

Live to Tell the Story gives an awe-inspiring and true account of the author’s overwhelming social, emotional, spiritual, and economic challenges over a lifetime. Her book begins by recounting a bittersweet childhood growing up in rural Pineland, South Carolina, until the age of eight. Life begins on a farm with fourteen siblings, where her parents grew vegetables and raised animals to survive. Early on, she and her family begin to witness turmoil when her father’s womanizing and physical abuse causes her mother to have fits of rage that end in horrid physical fights between the two. Life takes even more of a turn for the worse in the author’s family when her mother discovers her husband has also been sexually abusing her eldest daughter, Marvet.

Marvet’s rebellion against the abuse results in her being sent to live up north with an aunt who secretly introduces her to different dark side of life. Marvet returns home paralyzed after a botched abortion and eventually dies. Her mother’s death follows soon thereafter. She vividly recalls the dreadful moment she bursts into tears when her uncle informs her and her siblings that their mother is gone. Unable to cope with or forgive himself for the destruction of his family, her father becomes depressed and preoccupied with women. Following her mother’s untimely death, the remainder of the family moves to the urban low-income area of Newark, New Jersey, where life continues to spiral through more hurdles. She mourns her mother’s death until well into her late twenties, but memories of her mother’s love helps her to find forgiveness in her heart to forgive her father, and to move on with her life as she is faced with her own battles.

Live to Tell the Story tells a real story of triumph over some of life’s worst situations. It is a testimony of come hell or high water, faith, and how placing God in the center of one’s life will make anyone the victor over a past doomed for a failed future.

-- Pearl Upchurch