From the Bottom

Myrna Boles's parents name her after a movie star, but growing up, life is anything but glamorous. In fact, she was lucky to be born at all, given that her mother tried to abort her by drinking turpentine. Fortunately, it didn't work, and in 1932 she was born. As a child, her family moved to the Bottom-the colored section of Union City, Tennessee. They were one of the only white families in that section of town, and they didn't get there by accident. Others had simply grown tired of trying to help the family out because they knew their money would just end up in the belly of Myrna's alcoholic father. Meanwhile, as time goes on, Myrna's mother struggles just to keep her sanity. In this memoir, Myrna looks back at her life growing up in the rural South during the Great Depression, poor and unwanted. She endures bullying, abuse, cancer, and divorce. But through it all, she does her best to survive and seeks to find a better life From the Bottom.