In her stunning memoir, Wendy Lawless tells the often heartbreaking tale of her unconventional upbringing with an unstable alcoholic and suicidal mother--a real-life Holly Golightly turned Mommie Dearest--and the uncommon sense of resilience that allowed her to rise above it all.Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She'd slept with too many men and a few women, and she didn't like dogs or chilĀdren. Georgann possessed the icy beauty of a Hitchcock heroine with the cold heart to match.From living at the Dakota in 1960s Manhattan to London's swinging town houses and beyond, Wendy Lawless and her younger sister navigated day-to-day life as their unstable and fabulously neglectful mother, Georgann, chased her delusions, suffered dramatic breakdowns, and survived suicide attempts. With clear-eyed grace and flashing wit, Lawless portrays the highs and lows of her unhinged upbringing--and how she survived her mother's endlessly destructive search for glamour and fulfillment--in "a searing memoir that reads like a novel" (Anne Korkeakivi, An Unexpected Guest).