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For readers of beloved memoirs like Educated and The Glass Castle, a riveting and profoundly moving memoir set in rural Mississippi during the Civil Rights era about a white girl coming of age in a repressive society and the woman who gave her the strength to forge her own path-the black nanny who cared for her.

Tena Clark was born in 1953 in a tiny Mississippi town close to the Alabama border, where the legacy of slavery and racial injustice still permeated every aspect of life. On the outside, Tena´s childhood looked like a fairytale. Her father was one of the richest men in the state; her mother was a regal beauty. The family lived on a sprawling farm and had the only swimming pool in town; Tena was given her first car-a royal blue Camaro-at twelve.

But behind closed doors, Tena´s life was deeply lonely, and chaotic. By the time she was three, her parents´ marriage had dissolved into a swamp of alcohol, rampant infidelity, and guns. Adding to the turmoil, Tena understood from a very young age that she was different from her three older sisters, all of whom had been beauty queens and majorettes. Tena knew she didn´t want to be a majorette-she wanted to marry one.

On Tena´s tenth birthday, her mother, emboldened by alcoholism and enraged by her husband´s incessant cheating, walked out for good, instantly becoming an outcast in society. Tena was left in the care of her black nanny, Virgie, who became Tena´s surrogate mother and confidante-even though she was raising nine of her own children and was not allowed to eat from the family´s plates or use their bathroom. It was Virgie´s acceptance and unconditional love that gave Tena the courage to stand up to her domineering father, the faith to believe in her mother´s love, and the strength to be her true self.

Combining the spirit of poignant coming-of-age memoirs such as The Glass Castle and vivid, evocative Southern fiction like Fried Green Tomatoes, Southern Discomfort is about the people and places that shape who we are-and is destined to become a new classic.

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"Powerful, upsetting, and deeply hopeful, Tena Clark´s SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT is the brutal and true story of a family coming apart in a fracturing South told from the point of a view of a girl who makes peace with what she survived, fled and eventually came home to. A brave, wildly engrossing memoir." Bill Clegg, author of Did You Ever Have a Family

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Clark, Tena
Tena Clark is a Grammy Award-winning songwriter, music producer, and activist. She lives in Atlanta. Southern Discomfort is her first book.

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