{"product_id":"book-eu5d","title":"Never Simple","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLiz Scheier’s darkly funny and touching memoir—with shades of Jeannette Walls’s \u003ci\u003eThe Glass Castle \u003c\/i\u003eand Mira Bartók’s \u003ci\u003eThe Memory Palace\u003c\/i\u003e—of growing up in ’90s Manhattan with a brilliant, mendacious single mother\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eScheier’s mother Judith was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer you couldn’t look away from, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and—when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life—a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room to tell her two important things: one, she had been married for most of Scheier’s life to a man she’d never heard of, and two, the man she’d told Scheier was her father was entirely fictional. She’d made him up. Those two big lies were the start, but not the end; it took dozens of smaller lies to support them, and by the time she was done she had built a farcical, half-true life for the two of them, from fake social security number to fabricated husband. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne hot July day twenty years later, Scheier receives a voicemail from Adult Protective Services, reporting that Judith has stopped paying rent and is refusing all offers of assistance. That call is the start of a shocking journey that takes the Scheiers, mother and daughter, deep into the cascading effects of decades of lies and deception.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNever Simple \u003c\/i\u003eis the story of learning to survive—and, finally, trying to save—a complicated parent, as feared as she is loved, and as self-destructive as she is adoring.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Macmillan Audio","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49358756938032,"sku":"BDeu5d","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio CD [40]","offer_id":49358757003568,"sku":"40eu5d","price":39.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/289536-eu5d-Square.jpg?v=1734453845","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-eu5d","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}