Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter: A Memoir

Woven from humor, grief, love, and regret, Moss's memoir is the haunting story of a difficult and keenly felt life. Plagued by her family's poverty, her father's alcoholic abuse, and her painful awareness of her own malformed face, she is rescued by a life-giving appreciation for literature and art and a driving determination to achieve a life marked by beauty.

"Change Me into Zeus's Daughter" is a haunting and ultimately triumphant memoir about growing up poor and undaunted in the South. With an unflinching voice, Barbara Robinette Moss chronicles her family's chaotic, impoverished survival in the red-clay hills of Alabama. A wild-eyed, alcoholic father and a humble, heroic mother along with a shanty full of rambunctious brothers and sisters fill her life to the brim with stories that are gripping, tender, and funny.

Moss's early fascination with art coincides with her desire to transform her "twisted mummy face," which grew askew due to malnutrition and lack of medical care. Gazing at the stars on a clear Alabama night, she wishes to be the "goddess of beauty, much-loved daughter of Zeus." Against all odds, the image of herself surfaces at last as she learns to believe in the beauty she brings forth from inside.