About this item
A year in the desperate life of a boy transformed by OCD from a bright ten-year-old into a stranger in his own skin. Although Laurie Gough was an intrepid traveller who had explored wild, far-off reaches of the globe, the journey she and her family took in their own home in their small Quebec village proved to be far more frightening, strange, and foreign than any land she had ever visited. It began when Gough's son, shattered by his grandfather's death, transformed from a bright, soccer-ball kicking ten-year-old into a near-stranger, falling into trances where his parents couldn't reach him and performing ever-changing rituals of magical thinking designed to bring his grandpa back to life. Stolen Child examines a horrifying year in one family's life, the lengths the parents went to to help their son, and how they won the battle against his all-consuming disorder.
About the Author
Laurie Gough is the author of the newly-released Stolen Child: A Mother's Journey to Rescue Her Son From Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Dundurn) ; Kiss the Sunset Pig: An American Road Trip With Exotic Detours (Penguin) ; and Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman's Travel Odyssey (Travelers' Tales and Random House) , shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in the UK, and silver medal winner of ForeWord Magazine's Travel Book of the Year in the US. Over twenty of her stories have been anthologized in literary travel books. She has written for The Guardian, Macleans magazine, USA Today, salon.com, The L.A. Times, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, The National Post, Huffington Post, Canadian Geographic, The Daily Express, and Caribbean Travel Life, among others. See: www.lauriegough.com
