ST. GEORGE, UT, May 14, 2021
“I should have known, on that sultry summer day in 1950, when my five-year-old naked body was laid out over a bale of hay, that this was not normal. I should have known….” Thus opens Larry Franklin’s memoir, recently acquired by E.L Marker, and thus begins a decades long journey of sifting through the known and the unknown to find the truth and the lies of his past.
Franklin’s physical and sexual abuse began at a young age and continued into his teenage years. What is harder to know, is the beginnings of his repression of those memories. It wasn’t until a chance conversation with his mother, just before his fiftieth birthday, that he learned his father never loved him and his brother physically abused him. Following this conversation, Franklin is plagued by nightmares, disturbingly specific in content and which leave him “hugging my bathroom stool and vomiting through the night.” These nightmares lead Franklin along a journey to unlock a past his mind has protected him from for almost half a century.
In his memoir Franklin speaks candidly of the challenges and dangers of memory, especially repressed memories. “Who would believe such a tale,” he asks readers, “and more importantly, how can I separate fact from fiction?” These questions of belief, of fact, and of fiction, form the thematic fabric of Franklin’s book. As a result, his story is not just about a journey from victim to survivor but the nature of memory and truth.
In a better world, Franklin would have known that those trips to the barn were not normal. What his mind knew then, even if he didn’t, is that those trips must be hidden behind psychic doors, piece by piece, if he were to survive. Thankfully, when those doors opened, Franklin was not only willing to face what he discovered but share it.
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Larry L Franklin holds a bachelor and master’s degrees in music from the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University. He performed in the U.S. Navy Band from 1967 to 1971, and from 1972 to 1975 he taught music at Southern Illinois University. In 1976, he completed requirements for a certified financial planner designation and maintained a successful investment business until 2007 when he retired to devote his energies to writing. In 2003, he received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. Franklin is the author of a number of books including The Rita Nitz Story: A Life without Parole, published by Southern Illinois University Press. This will be his first publication with WiDo Publishing. Learn more about Larry Franklin at http://authorllfranklin.com.