Look at Penn State [where the abusive football coach, Jerry Sandusky, was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse]. The reason I am reissuing it is because it remains one of the only real, authentic stories of family abuse, and it is important it is continually available.

So, to all of you who have suffered in silence, who have lived in despair of justice, who have turned to drugs and alcohol as pain relief, who have allowed anger to rule life, and whose stories may never be told except as cold statistics, this edition is dedicated to you. Christopher, in spite of his desire for privacy, remained wholly supportive, she says, and she received thousands of letters “from people all over the world who had never heard somebody speak up on their behalf before. It was a young age at which to come to such a startling conclusion, to have one’s belief in the benignity of the world so profoundly altered.

It's as if she blocked all feeling out of her heart and mind- no matter how much the child in question was hurting. But when her eldest adoptive daughter, Christina Crawford, released the tell-all memoir Mommie Dearest in 1978 — within a year of Crawford’s death — it painted a much darker picture of the actress, one of an alcoholic and abusive mother prone to fits of rage. It was the first tell-all celebrity memoir, the first book to talk so openly or with such clarity about a childhood allegedly punctuated by psychological and physical abuse.

Mommie Dearest is a 1981 American biographical psychological drama [4] film directed by Frank Perry and starring Faye Dunaway, Steve Forrest, Mara Hobel, and Diana Scarwid, with supporting performances from Xander Berkeley in his feature film debut along with Rutanya Alda and Jocelyn Brando. She married four times and had a string of affairs with both men and women, including a one-night stand with Marilyn Monroe. Her hair is dyed blond and her eyes, a clear, watery blue, are obscured for much of the time behind sepia-tinted wraparound sunglasses.She was helped, rather perversely, by a fear of being incarcerated that grew out of her mother’s constant threats to have her put away. This book features an exclusive new introduction by the author, plus rare photographs from her personal collection and one hundred pages of revealing material not found in the original manuscript. The walls are hung with anonymous knick-knacks - a framed print of Shakespeare, a clock that chimes with birdsong on the hour.