"The hours between his departure from Attleboro, Massachusetts and the fatal blow to his daughter's head were allegedly missing from Frank's memory. He said it was the sight of his daughter's blood that finally snapped him back into reality"....

"The temperature suddenly rose about a hundred degrees. I stood up from where I had been bent over my laundry basket and began walking toward the man. I walked fast and I couldn't wait until I got there. In a way I felt hollow, empty of all... the fear and sadness I had fought for so long to rid myself of. 'You smell as if you haven't bathed in several weeks', I said. 'Your wig looks like the pelt of a skinned cat. And the ugly warts on your face have destroyed every bit of desire I had to sit down and have my lunch.'
The man was in shock. He was unable to say anything to defend himself. He was speechless. Just like my son"...

"Stanley Birch was the first man who was supposed to turn us into a family. A convicted car thief, he hopped on a plane the day he was released, flying from Texas to Maine when I was two years old, to come and live with us. The night before... the wedding, he beat my mother up pretty bad. I remember her standing in front of the mirror that night with a camouflaging stick, dabbing it beneath her swollen eye"... 

The little-known history of RI in the "good old days", which includes murder, suicide, piracy, prostitution and other shocking tales...