Pawns

Caught between a mentally ill mother and a stepfather with undiagnosed PTSD, Author Wendell Affield's childhood was marked by family dysfunction. In this memoir, which includes nearly 100 illustrations, he recounts growing up on an isolated farm in northern Minnesota in the 1950s. Musty letters, documents, and sixty-year-old photo negatives conjured memories as Affield pored over them. In a grainy negative beneath the magnifying glass, Affield saw his mother as the beautiful, mentally ill young