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THE SRONGBOX: SEARCHING FOR MY ABSENT FATHER

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Searching for a father who didn’t want to be found

In her riveting new memoir, The Strongbox: Searching for My Absent Father, Terry Sue Harms reveals the twisted path that led to her missing father—who preferred to remain unknown.

If Charles Dickens had written for Hollywood he might have come up with a story like Terry Sue Harms’ real life. Born to an impoverished and alcoholic mother and stepfather, by the time she was 16 her mother had drank herself to death and her stepfather—who frequently referred to her as a “bastard”—had mentally unraveled. She struggled to read and write because of an undiagnosed learning disability and only became fully literate as an adult. Although her biological father was never physically present, Terry Sue thought about him constantly. As a child she imagined him a debonair man of the world who would one day spirit her away from her hardscrabble life. As an adult, she set aside the fairy-tale fantasies and began a quest to find the real man, whom she hoped would be eager to meet his long-lost daughter and give her the kind of familial love and acceptance she craved. What she finds is far from both the childish dreams and the adult hopes.

In THE STRONGBOX: SEARCHING FOR MY ABSENT FATHER (She Writes Press, October 2020, Paperback) she shares her riveting story.

PRAISE FOR THE STRONGBOX

“Investigating her family of origin story, TSH refused to be dismissed by the culture of silence that surrounded her biological father. With probing curiosity, she dared to ask who was her father and why was he never a part of her life. The unexpected answers came as the result of her tenacity, candor, and compassion. Truth seekers everywhere will find and enjoy a kindred spirit in The Strongbox.”
―David Talbot, best-selling author of Season of the Witch

“Fearless, tender, and inspiring--The Strongbox is everything you most wish for in a memoir. Terry Sue Harms explores a history of pain, loss, and self-invention with eloquence and searing insight. An absorbing and deeply fulfilling book.”

—Jasmin Darznik, Author of The Good Daughter, Song of a Captive Bird, and The Bohemians

“Harms’s detective-like determination helps her unravel the truths about her family history. This story is a brave exploration about the complexities of family and―ultimately―leads to Harms finding closure in ways she never imagined.”
―Melissa Cistaro, author of the award-winning memoir Pieces of My Mother

“A complex tale about deception and revelation as profoundly confessional as The Liars’ Club, and a great job of storytelling—in The Strongbox, reluctant sleuth Terry Sue Harms sifts through clues to a dark past in a relentless probe for identity.”
—Linda Watanabe McFerrin, author of Dead Love and Navigating the Divide

“A mesmerizing book that’s all the more compelling because it’s true. Harms’s early years of poverty and separateness are the most challenging that one can imagine. The Strongbox describes her lifelong search to find her biological father, a search framed by one woman’s grit, determination, drive, and, eventually, self-actualization to overcome the significant obstacles of poverty, alcoholism and drug abuse, lack of education, and complete lack of support. Harms takes us with her on a life journey in which her gumption ultimately brings her to love and belongingness.”
―Elizabeth Griego, PhD, Principal, Elizabeth Griego & Associates

“Terry Sue Harms’s book The Strongbox is the most compelling thing I’ve read in years. The elements of this true story are fascinating in themselves: addiction, grinding poverty, abusive parenting, glamour, recovery, true romance, spirit rising strong and beautiful. But even more engaging than the subject itself is the gripping and lyrical way she writes. This is not only the author’s story but a light on the path for many, many others as well.”
―Kathryn Page, PhD, President, FASD

“The Strongbox is not just a spectacular story, it's also a cathartic one. Rejection, shame, and insecurity are universal shadows we all have, and Terry, with her rough start in life, plucky curiosity, and intelligent drive, is beautifully aware of her shadows enough to look them in the face and give them a voice, but not to let them run the show. The story concludes by filling the hollow that developed with a divine resolve that grace not only comes from God but also from our own power and how we respond to what life brings us.”
―Nicole Fuller, MAT, holistic health coach

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Terry Sue Harms has been a hairdresser and salon owner for over forty years. She finds that keen powers of observation and a sincere communication style have served both her work as a cosmetologist and as a writer; plus, when it comes to studying the human condition, few places are better than the beauty shop. After a childhood of illiteracy, she taught herself to read and write as a young adult, one of her proudest and most rewarding accomplishments. She has self-published two books: *Pearls My Mother Wore*, a novel and *Reflections Upon the Occasion of My 85th Year*, a memoir she coauthored with her father-in-law. *The Strongbox: Searching For My Absent Father* is her third book, published by She Writes Press. Terry Sue lives in scenic Sonoma, California with her husband.

Terry Sue Harms is available for interview. She can also write an original piece for your publication or provide an excerpt from her book. Here is just some of what she can discuss:

• To track down her father, she became a super-sleuth and set out on a winding, decades-long trail, full of promises, twists, setbacks, and breakthroughs before eventually landing at the doorstep of a father who lived only miles from her.

• She was cut out of 50 million dollar California real-estate fortune (but she doesn’t care); and her father grew rich while denying her mother meager child support.

• The Bay Area of the 70s and 80s, with its progressive and hard-partying culture is one of the characters in her story.

• Her mother, who was an alcoholic and had children from three different men, was shamed, and her father, a man who shunned his daughter (and her brother) and had his own battles with addiction, wasn’t; and what this tells us about sexist social norms and double standards.

• She went from illiteracy to the author of three books. Her first milestone was reading the longest autobiography she could find in the library.

• She found the fatherly love and acceptance she was looking for, but it didn’t come from her father.

• A nascent, but warm friendship with a half-sister, whom she met in her search, ended abruptly, dashing her hopes of any connection with her father’s side of her family.

• While trying to find an absent father she learned the tragic story of her grandmother’s life, who, like her mother, died young from alcoholism and was reduced to prostitution for survival.

• She faced the tough reality of being denied love from the person she wanted it from most.

• She escaped an abusive stepfather and, with lots of pluck and little money, launched a successful career as a hairdresser as a teenager and eventually owned her own salon.

• She held a “funeral” ceremony widely attended by family and friends on the day of the autumn equinox to free herself from a father who denied her existence until he was “literally blue in the face.”

• The addiction that had plagued generations of her family almost claimed her own life.

• With her close-knit community of friends and a dedicated husband, she found the love, acceptance, and support she yearned for, but didn’t get from her family.

SUGGESTED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why did you title your book The Strongbox?

2. In The Strongbox you detail your decades-long quest to find your missing father. It’s a story that has many twists and turns. Why do you think it was so important to you to find your father?

3. You were raised by an alcoholic mother and stepfather. Your mother died when you were a teenager. How did this impact you and did it make you more curious about your biological father?

4. One of the most vivid scenes in the book is when you describe returning to the home where you grew up after you had turned eighteen and finding the evidence of your stepfather’s mental deterioration. What happened to him after your mother died?

5. The image you conjured of your absent father changed throughout your life. How did you imagine him as a child and how did that transform as you got older?

6. The book really is about two major challenges in your life: finding your biological father and overcoming your difficulty with literacy. You didn’t fully learn how to read and write until you were in your early twenties. Why did you have so much difficulty with this and how did you overcome your struggles to the point where you are now discussing your third book?

7. How did you go about finding your father and what were some of the most surprising things about him when you did?

8. Your father never agrees to meet with you and the reason he gives is unsatisfying. What was it and do you think there was more to it than his “official” explanation?

9. Throughout your life you have an idealized vision of your father. It changes over time and you imagine him differently as you grow into an adult. Do you think that your father would have been able to meet your expectations and hopes if you had had a relationship with him or do you think they were too idealized for him to live up to?

10. You had a few dysfunctional relationships before meeting your husband, Lutrell. He comes across as a loving and supportive partner, who is there for you when you are disappointed and angry about how your search is unfolding. Was there ever a time when he thought you should stop looking or stop trying to have a relationship with your father?

11. Your mother comes off as an embittered and tragic figure, who doesn’t show much affection to you. You tell one particular story about how she was furious about having to take you for medical care after you cut your foot. How did you explain this to yourself as a child, and, now, as an adult, how do you think about your mother, what she went through, and her failure to be a loving parent?

12. In The Strongbox you detail your own struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction and also share how, in your research, you discovered that your grandmother was an alcoholic who also died young and your biological father was alcoholic. Why do you think you didn’t succumb to your addiction the way others in your family have?

13. You grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. How do you think coming of age in its liberal culture affected your story?

14. While you never form the connection that you hoped for with your biological father, you did with another older man. Who was he and how did it happen?

15. Why did you create a ritual for letting go of your father that you enacted with friends on family on the fall equinox and what was it?

16. You don’t seem to be very close with your siblings. In some families children develop a strong bond with each other when their parents are unable to care for them, but this didn’t happen with your brothers and sisters. Why do you think that is?

17. How did you learn that your father had died?

18. What role do you think the stigma about flouting rigid social norms played in your story? If there weren’t so much shame attached to having a child outside of marriage when you were conceived do you think it would have been different?

19. After decades of searching for your father and longing for a relationship with him your aspirations are unfulfilled. How did you reckon with investing so much of your life, your energy, and your hopes in a relationship that never materialized?

20. One thing that stands out in The Strongbox is that while you are born into difficult circumstances—poverty, alcoholism—and for most of your childhood and young adulthood you only had yourself to rely on, you don’t ever come of self-pitying. You figure out how to make your way and build a successful and happy life yourself. Where do you think that strength comes from?