Category: ashkettle boys

How One Author’s Books About Abuse and Neglect Reflect Real Life

AnneLeave a comment

I write books about abuse and neglect.

My books aren’t for everyone. In fact, readers either love them to death and follow them passionately, or they hate them in the extreme.

There is no middle ground.

As an author, as a describer of worlds, this used to bother me, but I’ve since discovered a hard truth pertaining to books about abuse and neglect: Some readers identify; others don’t, and it’s the farthest thing from personal.

Abuse and Neglect: Sticky Topics

For other readers, however, The Ashkettle Boys Book Series remains sticky. Sonny, Bo, and Dack linger in the minds of these readers long after the last page turns.

And that, my friends, is what writing books is all about.

These are my readers, and I appreciate them.

Everyone can never love you, but to a select few, maybe you’re doing a good thing.

A Fictional Series of Books About Abuse and Neglect

cropped-fb-cover-1.jpgThe Ashkettle boys are brothers. The series begins when Dack is just sixteen and trying to survive a life ruled by a cruel step-uncle. The opening scene is explosive, but satisfying, and it catapults readers into the worlds of Sonny, Bo, and Dack Ashkettle — devoted brothers fighting to save each other, regardless of the consequences.

The setting is cold — a mostly fearful community of neighbors in the reclusive Appalachian Mountains, reluctant to get involved. From the opening pages, however, the story warms. My favorite parts of these stories, ones that fought their way to life through the overwhelming powers of self-doubt and procrastination, are the passages that echo the love of a determined family to escape abnormality and find at least momentary peace, however fleeting.

How Books About Abuse and Neglect Reflect Real Life

Sadly, many children and teens live much like the characters portrayed in books about abuse and neglect. In fact, statistics from Childhelp.org are heartbreaking:

  • Five children die every day in this country from abuse and neglect.
  • We report an incident of child abuse every 10 seconds in America.
  • There are enough mistreated children in America to fill at least five football stadiums. These are only the ones about which authorities are aware.
  • Abuse and neglect in childhood can shorten your life expectancy as you grow older and leave you with mental scars that make life difficult to understand.

The last is a pervasive theme throughout the Ashkettle Boys Books, because keeping mental illness real and portraying it truthfully is important.

Meet the Ashkettle Boys

Thoughtful handsome. Handsome young man in full suit and sunglasses holding hands clasped looking thoughtful while sitting against grey background

In the Ashkettle Boys books, Dack is the youngest brother who took the brunt of the abuse and neglect for seven long years. He battles daily to control his mental state and to navigate life in a “normal” fashion. Luckily, he has his two older brothers to help.

Some people read my books and leave reviews stating that they’re exaggerated or unrealistic. Others say things like, “Yes. That’s exactly what happened to me.”

Unless you’ve experienced it, or you grew up with someone who experienced it, you’re probably not going to get it. And that’s wonderful. I wish that very thing for all my readers. Trendy young man in black shirt, portrait of sexy fashion boy lo

But if you do identify with books about abuse and neglect, you’ll find hope in the Ashkettle Boys books. These are books about abuse and neglect, it’s true. But these are also books about hope and redemption, books about moving on and letting go, books about finding your way in a dark so black it solidifies, forcing you to kick, claw and scream your way out.

Handsome man faceMostly, however, they’re books about the strength of family and the undefinable power of love. I hope you’ll begin reading with Ashkettle Crazy and work your way through:

  • Ashkettle Haunted
  • Ashkettle Fierce
  • Downers
  • Shaw’s Obsession
  • Sweet Cold of Winter
  • Ashkettle Boys: The Trilogy (Featuring books 1,2, and 3)

You know, if you identify with books about abuse and neglect.

Explore Ashkettle Boys Titles.

Sources

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Childhelp.org

Karen at the Helm

AnneLeave a comment

Did you know? Before there were the Ashkettle Boys, there were the Karen Stories. If you’re a reader of the Ashkettle Boys books, and you recognize phrases or passages, that’s because the Karen Stories eventually morphed into “Ashkettle Crazy.”

Enjoy 🙂

Karen at the Helm

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Karen talks to weeds.

It sounds strange, but she brings those weeds to life as she sits there on that well cap, circled by industrious honey bees. I sit there too, entranced by the stories Karen weaves around two sneeze-inducing stems of yellow foxtail, of all things. The weeds take on lives. They talk to each other, and they work out problems — boy problems, school problems, futures those weeds want that are so out of their reach.

They’re weeds, after all. Two tall, spindly living things tucked away in the hollow and having little impact on the world around them. It’s not like they’re tomatoes or even kale, and it’s hardly likely that they’ll ever become police officers or marine biologists.

Weeds like that grow wild and prolific in the Appalachians – common as topsoil — not a damn thing special about them.

But in Karen’s hands, they take on personalities and tell stories. They even affect speech impediments from time to time, and they always, always love Charles Bronson.

Sometimes, when Karen isn’t talking to weeds, she’s drawing volcanoes – little exploding mountains of ink. Tiny stick-figure people run from these mountains whenever they erupt. Those little people have stories too, and I can’t get enough of them. They have strikingly complicated lives for simple drawings. Some of them have husbands and children, even. Often, they’re well-meaning scientists who tragically miscalculate. Sometimes they’re contrary townspeople who stubbornly refuse to evacuate. Usually, those careless, inked characters end up covered in molten ink lava, but occasionally, they manage to escape.

The really lucky ones get rescued just in the nick of time by a stick hero who bears a striking resemblance to Charlton Heston.

On the very best days, Karen and I visit a forbidding and momentous pile of dirt in the woods, pushed there years ago when Grandpap cleared the land. Grass and bendy saplings have overtaken this place, and I think it’s shaped somewhat like the head of a rattlesnake. But Karen sees right away that it’s really more monster-like. She christens it Monster Head, and it’s immediately obvious that Monster Head is the perfect name for such a hideout. Karen plays there almost every day, and I play too. We pull plants up by their roots and hang them on tree branches. These roots sustain us during hard times like blizzards or earthquakes or invasion by vicious, wild dogs who cleverly disguise themselves as aging, limping beagles named Pancho and Alexander.

New disasters wait around every corner when Karen is in charge. You never know what’s going to happen next. Sometimes the whole world floods, and Monster Head is the only boat left anywhere, and there’s not a single hi-fi nor television antenna left on Earth.

And in times like these, it’s good to have Karen at the helm.

Copyright © 2015 Anne Goetz. All Rights Reserved.