Character Witness

When Jason Brown’s mother is arrested for stealing $38,000, he agrees to serve as a character witness for her, hoping to keep her out of prison. Thus begins Character Witness , a memoir, a chronicle of a mother’s struggle with mental illness, addiction, and poverty, and an inquiry into whether we can escape the legacy of the past. Brown realizes that his troubles as a young man mirrored his mother’s, and as he chronicles how sexual abuse can pass down through generations—from father to daughter,