Mistakes to Run With

a memoir from a woman who must have lived with undiagnosed mental illness for 20+ years. not feeling a connection with her family, she easily fell into prostitution by 15 with her boyfriend acting as her pimp. or maybe i'm getting the chronology wrong, because the book is heavily focused on her thoughts, feelings, and interpretations of what she experienced. I know she never felt close with her parents and yet she does see them, amicably, on occasion and even needed them to deliver weekly groceries to ensure she and her 2 children didn't starve.
i think I bookmarked the novel to be read as a tale of surviving prostitution, and I don't even mind the haphazard, jumping way she describes her experiences with drugs, abuse and sex work (it makes sense these vignettes would be compartmentalized in her mind) but once she became a mom, it was hard to withhold my judgement. While I admire her ability to admit she saw children as way to enrich her scope of experience and thereby improve her writing, she never does reconcile that bit of honesty with the flesh and blood before her that are a joy and burden to love.
mostly, the writing was too self centered, with the occasional crystal clear moment of an interaction with someone 'other'. she is deeply interested in how her mind and spirit work and it's not as accessible to people on the outside.