"One morning, Kim Brooks made a split-second decision to leave her four-year old son in the car while she ran into a store. What happened would consume the next several years of her life and spur her to investigate the broader role America's culture of fear plays in parenthood. In Small Animals , Brooks asks, Of all the emotions inherent in parenting, is there any more universal or profound than fear? Why have our notions of what it means to be a...

"A brilliant, funny, generation-defining memoir about the double bind of crafting perfect adversity narratives for highly selective institutions, while fumbling through the far murkier reality of actual life in foster care and inpatient mental health treatment. As a child, Emi Nietfeld was caught between a hoarder mother who got her put on antipsychotic medication, but was also the only person to believe she was exceptional, and a state system exemplified...

"An anonymous caller tells a detective in a small Oregon town that a woman has just bitten off a man's finger. But the man is not the victim, the caller says. The woman is. She's being held against her will by a group of faith-healing fanatics who are trying to cure her depression with violent exorcisms. The detective rescues her, but she is afraid to press charges against the people in her church. Then the detective gets an even more ominous message:...