Return to the River: Reflections on Life Choices During a Pandemic

by Dave Pelzer

From #1 international bestselling author, speaker, and humanitarian Dave Pelzer comes the next chapter in his life—how, after spending decades saving others in the military, as a fire captain, and an internationally acclaimed advocate, he needs to confront a way to save himself.

On the surface, Dave Pelzer’s life seems like an action movie—he’s walked the red carpet with celebrities and stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers in Iraq; he’s flown top-secret missions for the U.S. Air Force, obtaining the rank of chief, and battled wildfires in California as a volunteer fire captain. And now—on the eve of the 50-year anniversary of this rescue from horrific childhood of abuse and into the safety of the foster care system—he reflects on the battles he’s fighting in his own heart. From a lifetime spent serving and saving others, can he learn how to serve and save himself?

Banished to his basement at age five, Dave Pelzer had cried a river of tears before most children learned to tie their shoes. His now classic books, A Child Called “It ” and The Lost Boy , chronicled how he was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic a mother who nearly killed him multiple times. But despite the odds stacked against him, he rose to become a #1 New York Times bestselling author, inspirational speaker, and internationally recognized humanitarian.

After fighting for years to vanquish his pain and to channel it into service for others, Pelzer sifts through the psychological rubble of a life that has seemingly crumbled around him. What he shares is deeply transformative and unflinchingly honest. In his struggle to simply survive, he never learned how to just be. Reeling from the loss of a love—and a broken spirit—Pelzer must reconcile his life choices and free himself of blame and shame to find peace and renewed purpose.

Amidst the towering redwood trees and the serenity of his childhood utopia of the Russian River, Pelzer reflects on having the courage to move forward in your life, the peace to accept yourself, the vulnerability to strip yourself of facades, and to find the tenacity to carry on when life doesn’t turn out the way you planned.

For anyone who has been hurt, victimized, or feels alone, there is hope and there is always a way to rewrite your own story. Pelzer’s soulful and inspiring story will remind you to keep your faith, live with gratitude, and find the well of resilience deep within you.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Self Help

256 pages, Paperback

Published March 7, 2023

About the author

An author best known for his 1995 memoir of childhood abuse, A Child Called It.

At the age of 12, Dave was removed from an abusive home and placed in a series of foster homes. In 1979, he joined the Air Force and later became an author of memoirs and self-improvement books.

A CHILD CALLED "IT" IS COMING TO THE BIG SCREEN.

August 2017 - We are very excited to announce that writer/producer David Goldblum of Conscious Contact Productions has acquired the film rights to Dave Pelzer's, #1 New York Times bestselling book, A Child Called “IT” which was on the New York Times Best Sellers List for a record breaking six years. Tamlin Hall, whose film Holden On has won multiple awards around the country is attached to direct. Dave Pelzer is adapting the screenplay alongside Goldblum and Hall. The movie is in pre-production, with production set to begin in Spring 2018. A-List talent are already circling the project. Be sure and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for updates. https://www.facebook.com/AChildCalled....

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

As gleeful as I am to return to the river, I am still haunted by the demise of my former marriage. As much as I’ve dissected every aspect of my life, at the end of the day, my day, with whatever time I have remaining, like a passenger on a departing cruise ship after waving goodbye to those I’ve loved and painfully miss, I have to dedicate myself to step away from the stern, make my way to the bow, and move on with my life’s journey. I will simply, quietly, sail off into the sunset.

Author Dave Pelzer is famous for having written A Child Called “It” (a memoir of having suffered through “one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history”), and with the release of further memoirs, he “was the first author to have four #1 international bestsellers and to have four books simultaneously on the New York Times bestsellers list”. Although I hadn’t read any of his prior books, I was roughly aware of Pelzer’s story and was intrigued to learn where he finds himself today as relayed in his latest memoir: Return to the River. Written in the wake of a devastating divorce and working through the COVID pandemic as a first responder, Pelzer had plenty of reason to give up on ever finding happiness and security; but as a child who had had to rely on incredible inner strength and perseverance just to stay alive, Pelzer finds the motivation to keep going. In a narrative that shifts between the present and the past, Pelzer reviews his entire life here — from the abuse he suffered at his mother’s hands to his happier days in foster care, his career in the Air Force, as a bestselling author and motivational speaker, and ultimately, as volunteer Fire Captain battling California wildfires — and while this does make for a satisfying standalone read, I can see how this would be even more satisfying for someone more intimate with Pelzer’s life story. For me personally: While I appreciated the overview of the author’s life, I felt I was missing out on the details (I don’t really know why he got divorced, or anything about the mother of his grown son, or why he was forced to move out of his dream home — why is he broke today after all those bestselling books? — and while none of that is any of my business, I felt the gaps). On the other hand: It’s valuable to learn that an abuse survivor doesn’t just shake the pain off when he gets to adulthood; even if he writes bestselling books, wins countless awards, and is respected as a rock solid first responder, living a life in service to others doesn’t necessarily equal service to oneself — and that’s an interesting lesson to learn in one’s sixties. I would rate this a 3.5 and am rounding up to four stars. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

I’m losing it. I feel as if my inner confidence has somehow slipped from my grasp. I realize my emotions are a potpourri of adapting to the increasing stress of COVID World, being a first responder, moving, struggling to find a place to live, a heart-wrenching divorce, leaving my firefighting family, and dissecting my life. Yet, I know, I feel, I am a shell of the person I used to be. From deep within, I have no battery stores to draw from. I feel I’ve foolishly exposed my life to too much kryptonite.

The title “Return to the River” is meant both literally and figuratively: After his divorce, Pelzer was forced to sell his beautiful Zen-like Sea Ranch dream house, and as he had reached his sixties and felt his body beginning to baulk at the demands of firefighting, he decided to quietly retire from the volunteer work and look for a place to live along the Russian River; the site of one of his only happy memories from childhood when his family vacationed there; a memory that sustained him through the worst years of the abuse he suffered at his mother’s hands. But between the wildfires and the pandemic that saw people displaced from their homes — his upscale community had residential streets choked with people living out of run down RVs and cars — Pelzer found himself at the end of his rope with nowhere to land. The quest to find a new home drives the narrative of the memoir — with frequent memories and hard-won wisdom thrown in — and Pelzer eventually returning to the river sees him returning, permanently, to that fleeting sense of happiness and security he had held on to so tightly as a child.

Throughout my life, I’ve always ventured down life’s different paths. And somehow, some way, while the journey may have been fraught with peril, things have more than worked out. I just need to find a pathway that leads me there. Of all things, I have faith. I only wish I had more time.

There’s not a whole lot to this memoir, but it was enough for me: The stories Pelzer shares here of the abuse he suffered were horrifying and I don’t feel the need to read his other books now. But, again, for those who have been following Pelzer’s journey, I think this would be a fascinating follow up. More than anything: I wish the author well and do hope that he has found a place of peace and security.

[Richard Propes · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are an abuse survivor, there's a strong likelihood that you at least know the name Dave Pelzer.

If you are a male survivor, it's incredibly likely that Pelzer is one of those people that you looked to as you traveled your own healing journey and began constructing something resembling a healthy life.

The now 61-year-old writer/speaker first wrote "A Child Called It" in 1995. "A Child Called It" recounted Pelzer's horrific experiences with childhood abuse and would stay in the New York Times bestseller list for several years. While many authors will hold on to that claim of being a "bestseller," Pelzer practically defines what being a bestseller really means.

Pelzer would follow up "A Child Called It" with "The Lost Boy" and over the years became widely known as a writer and motivational speaker who has received a myriad of awards including the national Jefferson Award. He's spent weeks with troops overseas, fought ferocious fires, and much, much more.

With "Return to the River: Reflections on Life Choices During a Pandemic," Pelzer for the most part turns the literary lens inward and reflects on a life spent in service but often in avoidance of his own needs and the needs of his relationships. After a divorce, though not his first (the book only mentions one specifically), Pelzer returns to the area around his beloved Russian River to reflect on his life choices and, yes, those choices during the pandemic that has impacted so many of us.

As is Pelzer's trademark, "Return to the River" is both brutally honest and deeply reflective. He begins by essentially returning us to a brief revisiting of his childhood, though "Return to the River" is more focused on Pelzer's current life and how it's been impacted by those years since his childhood abuse.

While "Return to the River" turns inward, it also continues Pelzer's devotion to moving forward. As a male survivor myself, and as a male survivor who has written (though much less successfully) about my experiences, I couldn't help but reflect upon my own challenges in putting away the past and moving forward when, on some level, the past is always present and in some ways intentionally so. "Return to the River" is an example. Despite being nearly 50 years past when teachers finally intervened and Pelzer was removed by police from the family home, even Pelzer's most spiritual writing, as this is, inevitably must begin with at least some immersion in those events of the past. It's difficult to write a book about healing without at least referencing what you're healing from. Indeed, "Return to the River" is harrowing in its first chapter yet becomes something entirely different moving forward.

Of course, even while reading that harrowing chapter we know how it ends. Or, at least we know how it has ended so far. While Pelzer seldom offers great details about his adulthood mistakes, for example the failure of his marriage is largely reduced to a failure to take their usual walks and the absence of once beloved trips, there's an awareness that he's coming to terms with the impact of his past on how he has lived his life. Pelzer seems to sort of click with the insight that while living one's life for others is often celebrated, it's also in many ways a coping skill that becomes not quite as healthy at some point in the healing journey. In some ways, it becomes an avoidance of the healing that truly needs to occur.

There are times in "Return to the River" when it feels like it loses a bit of focus, though this feels consistent with Pelzer's entire journey because he's less concerned with portraying himself as an expert in healing and more concerned with honestly and transparently sharing his journey. "Return to the River" feels less polished than some of Pelzer's writing but, perhaps, this is because Pelzer himself is realizing that the semi-pristine sheen of his life has been much more like a dirt gravel road on one of his favorite trails. He's becoming aware of that lack of polish and leaning into it a little more as someone who writes, speaks, and volunteers often. At 61, Pelzer seems to be grappling with the life he's lived at an age where he's now older than his father was when he passed and within a couple years of the age when his mother passed.

In essence, "Reflection" is a word that shines brightly throughout "Return to the River." Pelzer is truly reflecting here.

For myself as a survivor, "Return to the River" is a meditative reflection on how life unfolds following abuse. While it's certainly different for everyone, "Return to the River" felt familiar to me as Pelzer looks inward and reflects on his abuse, his choices, his relationships, his successes, his failures, his sorrows, his joys, his now, and his future. There's a sense that, just perhaps, it has taken what feels like an implosion of his life for Pelzer to reach a point where moving from survivor to thriver means something different than it did 30 years ago. It's as if, perhaps, he's learning how to not see himself through this lens of public service and more simply as Dave. This is likely an exaggeration, but there are moments in "Return to the River" when it feels as if he's letting go of the final remnants of holding on to that identity of being an "it."

I doubt if "Return to the River" will be acknowledged along the lines of books like "A Child Called It," "The Lost Boy," or even his third title "A Man Named Dave." However, I can't help but think that "Return to the River" is very much the book that Pelzer needed it to be as he relaxes into himself and he celebrates a renewed sense of purpose and pats himself on the back for a life well lived.

[Lily Heron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whatever happened to the child called It? Half a century after he was dramatically rescued from a horrifically abusive home environment, Dave Pelzer reflects on what it means to survive into adulthood, and how the journey of recovery is a never-ending road of grief, self-discovery, and redemption.

cw: recollections of extreme child abuse; suicidal ideation; dissociation.

This book will be upsetting for many readers, and likely triggering for abuse survivors. No doubt there will be those who question the author's account, victim-blame him, or doubt his version of events because he isn't behaving in the way they expect a survivor should, or they feel he is too whiny, or he doesn't match up to their image of the idealised victim. That's part of the reason why I'm giving 5*, but it's also because there are some haunting lines in the book that struck me to the core and really made me feel seen. It's sad to realise life doesn't offer happy endings the way you might expect from a trilogy memoir, where the author can put down the pen and walk away into the sunset, having purged themself of their past and knowing in their bones it's over now. The author frames his complex difficulties in terms of a desperate need for safety, and I thought he did an excellent job at demonstrating how people living with trauma struggle so deeply to ever feel safe, and how the lack of this fundamental need affects you in every aspect of your life, even as you try so hard to overcome obstacles, do better, and prove yourself worthy of being alive.

The author talks a lot about how as a child he felt invisible or unreal. He was looking for evidence that he was a real person. A lot of the experiences feel to me like extreme dissociation, although he doesn't use terms such as these. Basically, his sense of deep, intense isolation comes across with intensity, and coupling that with his need to prove his own worth, to constantly over-give and self-sacrifice, I felt hugely validated as a reader. In this reflective memoir the author attempts to address and heal the deep wounds of his past and fill in the craters in his heart. Perhaps it's not quite as fulfilling as a fictional piece might be, in the sense that for personal reasons or privacy reasons he's decided not to go into much detail as to his divorce or his relationship with his beloved son and grandson. As a reader, being held at arm's length in this way left me feeling his story wasn't quite fully told, but I got the sense this was a purposeful choice and I accept it with respect. His story won't be fully over until he breathes his last breath, and I really feel this book is a testament to the author's strength, endurance, and will to survive unspeakable horrors, I hope he finds writing this and putting it out into the world is a meaningful and healing experience. Although I doubt it will get the exposure it deserves - not being as gruesome or salacious as A Child Called It, Return to the River will doubtless be one of my favourite releases of 2023.

My favourite line came towards the end, about stepping away from the stern of the ship so as to engage with one's life journey at the bow. Beautifully put.

disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from Health Communications Inc via NetGalley and I am voluntarily leaving this honest review.

[James Maxon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read “A Child Called It” many years ago, and it resonated with me so much that I purchased his other books, too. When I saw he had yet another coming out this year (2023), I happily preordered it. At 265 pages it’s on the short side, so didn’t take me long to complete. “Return to the River” is a brief recap of his childhood trauma, which he revisits by transitioning from scenes in his present life as a 60-year-old man. At the end are a few letters written about Dave from people he knows, and on the audiobook is a recording of Dave himself speaking about the book. I found it interesting that the cover is an artistic rendering of a scene that took place in his childhood. As to the book itself, I found myself getting pulled back into Dave’s world. I was glad to finally hear Dave vent towards his father as I often got the impression from his other books that he held his dad on a pedestal. This is the guy who abandoned him in a crazy situation and yet was still highly admired. That always bothered me because I went through a similar abandonment by my father to a household of mental illness. I do think it’s admirable that Dave still loves and cherishes his father’s memory, but at the same time, I’m glad he finally said his peace. In some ways, there’s a dark tone to this book. For instance, I was saddened to hear of what happened to his marriage, his living situation, his thoughts of suicide, and even how shallow some of the people he worked with were. But Dave still found a way to pull through and offer some words of encouragement. I would not call this a self-help book. Instead, it’s more of a reflection with some wisdom interjected here and there. If this is Dave’s final book, I’d say it does a good job of summation. Thankfully that's not the end, as I was happy to learn that he has a podcast, which I will be definitely looking into.

[Thresher G · Rating 3 out of 5]

'A Child Called "It"' was foundational to my elementary education. Having the opportunity to read about the personal life of Dave Pelzer and the beauty of his mind. Tragically, beautiful I have gained a new perspective on my life and a level of gratitude.

[Suzan Ball · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dave Pelzer tells the latest chapter in his life of triumph over a terrible childhood of abuse by a mentally ill parent. His positive experiences as a firefighter and a public speaker are countered by the sadness of a divorce and a suicide ideation. His home renovations as he moves from a beloved home to a house full of interesting home improvement projects seem to improve his outlook.

Fans of A Child Called " It" will like this.

[Dylan O'Shea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This had moments that were really profound (especially towards the beginning and middle) but at times, it felt really repetitive and a little too corny. Nonetheless, I am glad I read it and I think this was a very vulnerable writing experience for the author that mostly translates.

[Manette · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of us who read Dave’s first books about his survival and eventual rescue from an extremely abusive home, this is an authentic look at where Dave is in his 60s during the pandemic. Dave invites his readers into his self-reflections and ongoing mental battles that are a part of his ongoing healing. Dave shares wisdom he has gained from his life experiences, through sharing his life story he demonstrates moving forward in forgiveness, and accepting life’s challenges with dignity and grace. I believe everyone can find a snippet of truth, inspiration, or wisdom for themselves as they read his story.

[Anne Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book that shows the resilience of an individual.
It makes you feel hopeful at the end.
At the beginning of the book, it was difficult to be reminded of the author's early childhood.


I purchased this book for my students. They have read the earlier books by Dave Pelzer.

[Jodie Rennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the stories were the same events from previous books.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listened a bit like a self-published vanity title, but it did have interesting vignettes. If Mr. Pelzer is running for office somewhere I can easily wish him well.

[Rather.be.reading1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. As soon as I saw Peltzer had a new book I immediately had to grab it! I remember reading A Child Called It as a teenager and so I had to see what he has been up to since. It was the perfect quick, short read. Definitely recommend.