Secret Girl

(St. Martin’s Press, April 4, 2006)

After more than 30 years, two sisters find each other

This is a memoir about a well-to-do Baltimore family that for decades guarded a secret they felt too ashamed to reveal, much less discuss among themselves.

When Brucie Jacobs, the family’s eldest daughter, finds herself newly sober at the age of 38, she finally seeks out and comes face-to-face with this secret—a younger sister Anne who was diagnosed at birth with hydrocephalus and mental retardation, then institutionalized.

Anne has never been home to visit, and Jacobs has never seen her.

This memoir goes beyond the story of simply one family; it sheds light upon the struggle for human connection that we all share, and upon the need to accept one’s limitations, as well as to learn forgiveness. Click HERE for excerpts from Secret Girl.