Cinderland

August 15, 2014
A haunting debut memoir about the price of keeping secrets in small-town, Rust Belt America. Mercury, Pennsylvania, had once been a thriving, vigorous city. But when Burns grew up there during the aftermath of "the Steel Apocalypse" that began in the late 1960s, life moved at a "barely detectable" pace. In 1991, the town suddenly emerged from its "waking sleep" to confront the shocking reality that a beloved piano teacher had been fondling his young female students. As a 10-year-old, Burns was one of the victims. Yet she chose to lie about the molestation because in Mercury, "a girl [couldn't] escape her reputation," and the seven girls who told the truth had faced devastating consequences. But silence had its own costs. Burns' capacity to love during adolescence became stunted by fear. She could not fully open her heart to a boy because her trust had been violated. Further, love also had the potential to root her to a town that she loved but desperately wanted to escape. Any relationships she did form were with "safe" boys, like those from her church or with those for whom love was a performance, much like the ones she gave on stage in high school drama productions. Her unquiet conscience never let her forget the fellow victims she had betrayed through her silence. In an ironic twist, Burns became one of seven homecoming princesses, girls as pure as new-made steel who had the love and approval of Mercury. But as she discovered, getting everything she wanted was "dirty business." Only by leaving that world built by coal and iron and now foundering in its own ashes could she begin her process of purification through the written word. A slim, lyrically evocative memoir.

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September 1, 2014
Burns grew up in the Rust Belt town of Mercury, Pennsylvania, and writes evocatively of familiar seasonal rituals, including summers at the swimming pool, football games, and local theater productions. Mercury has a problem, howevera piano teacher whose hands wander to his young female students. Burns is one of those who denied the allegations and steadfastly refused to admit what went on during her weekly lessons. Now, years later, she trains her literary eye with elegant precision on the town that induced her to enact that charade. With words of seminal grace and power, Burns writes artfully of the urge to leave home, teenage romance, and lost friendships. Shunning sensationalism, she instead immerses readers in images of a town mourning its broken promise of middle-class success and clinging to moments of past glory. It simply cannot bear another loss. Burns has clearly never been able to reconcile the lie her 10-year-old self so casually embraced, writing, Some will stay and wish they'd left. Others will leave and wish they'd stayed. I will always be looking back. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)