Broken Soul

In Broken Soul, the author tells the story of her mother's alcoholism, and fanatic love for her father; which nearly destroyed her entire family from the late 1940's to the present. She believed that her baby brother suffered the most, and was also let down by the local agencies which should have come to his rescue.

The author expresses how her father’s side of her family may possibly contain DNA of high achievers, which led her to compare her family’s life experiences with her father’s extended family, especially a cousin who rose up to become President Obama’s appointed US Attorney General.

The author later determined that her brother and her cousin played opposite roles at the justice department since as a teenager, her brother served a life sentence in prison for murder. He served his time at Attica State Prison during the infamous 1971 riot; and due to his high achievement capability, he became one of the first prisoners in the nation to be awarded a BA degree (he majored in psychology) while serving his time in prison. He had never even completed elementary school before going to prison. Her brother played a part in developing the prison’s college program while still an inmate, where he worked immediately upon his release.

There was also an eighty-five-year-old cousin who formerly owned a gas station in Rocky Mount, North Carolina back in the Jim Crow era, which was unheard of at the time.

The family also includes a recent cousin who retired in his early thirties from the Philadelphia Phillies as a major-league baseball player. Today he is a sports analyst for ESPN Sports TV.

The story follows her brother’s painful journey, from the beginning of his childhood, until his early death ended his suffering. The journey takes us deep into the reasons why so many souls die, unable to be resuscitated. The journey caused her brother a broken soul!