A Brother's Journey: Surviving a Childhood of Abuse - Richard B. Pelzer

David Pelzers book "A Child Called It" chronicles the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother until he is taken into care. It has become an international bestseller and while some see him as a hero of our modern age others see him as a scam artist especially after an expose in the New York Times which casts doubt on the truth of his story. When David was taken away his four brothers were left behind. Now that Mama Pelzer no longer has "It" to abuse she turns her wrath on Richard and he tells his own sorry story in this book. I think its safe to say that Mrs Pelzer wont win any mother of the year awards. The catalogue of ...  Read the complete review

Richard Pelzer, younger brother of David Pelzer (famous for his harrowing "A Child Called It" trilogy), appears to jump on his brother's bandwagon with this equally harrowing tale of his mother's abuse of him and his brother. Starting with a four year old Richard, he is forced to join in his mother's cruel gauntlet of abuse against his older brother, who is on the verge of starvation and barely alive sleeping in the basement on an old army cot. As David finally escapes thanks to the intervention of the authorities, the rest of the children are left with the alcoholic controlling mother who picks out one child for abuse and showers the rest with love and refers ...  Read the complete review

BLURB: "The story of dAVE Pelzer is a legend of our times: the shattering tale of the child called 'it'. When Dave was 12 the police removed him from the household, but the cycle of abuse continued. With Dave's departure Richard, at the age of 9, became the target of his mother's artillery of insanity: the victim of savage beatings leading to hospitalisation; the boy denied clean clothes; the one who 'deserved' whole bottle of hot Tabasco sauce poured down his throat. Ultimately, the only way to survive was to escape. As well as evoking the torturous environment in which he lived, Richard B. Pelzer recounts how he managed to leave it, and how ...  Read the complete review