Lies My Mother Never Told Me: A Memoir

by Kaylie Jones

In her riveting memoir Lies My Mother Never Told Me, Kaylie Jones—the daughter of author James Jones ( From Here to Eternity ) and an acclaimed author in her own right ( A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries; Celeste Ascending; As Soon As It Rains )—tells the poignant story of her relationship with her famous father and her alcoholic mother, and of her own struggles with the disease. A true story of privilege, loss, self-discovery, and redemption, Lies My Mother Never Told Me is Jones’s unforgettable account of a not-quite-fairy-tale childhood and adulthood defined by two literature and alcohol.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Contemporary, Addiction, Biography Memoir

384 pages, Hardcover

First published August 18, 2009

About the author

Kaylie was born in Paris, France and attended French schools until she returned with her family to the U.S. in 1974. Her father was the novelist James Jones.

Kaylie began to study Russian as her third language at age 8, and continued to study the language and literature through her four undergraduate years at Wesleyan University and her two years at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where she received her MFA in Writing.

Kylie Jones has published six books, the most recent a memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me. Her novel A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries was adapted as a Merchant Ivory film in 1998.

Jones has been teaching for more than twenty-five years, and is a faculty member in the Stony Brook Southampton MFA in Creative Writing & Literature program and in Wilkes University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. She is the author of Speak Now and the editor of Long Island Noir. Her newest endeavor is her publishing imprint with Akashic Books, Kaylie Jones Books.