About this item
An emotional, page-turning account of unhealed trauma and personal transformation that will break your heart and change your mind, in the tradition of Somebody's Daughter, A Piece of Cake, and Jesmyn Ward's Men We ReapedRiveting, honest, and raw, I Can Take It From Here recounts Lisa Forbes's harrowing journey into darkness - including a fourteen-year-long stint in a maximum-security prison - and her fierce resolve to understand the effects of the trauma she endured, to take personal responsibility for her actions, and to ensure that her history does not dictate her destiny.The youngest of six children, Lisa grew up in a Chicago housing project where she endured sexual, religious, and emotional abuse as a little girl. A voracious reader, she graduated high school at 15 and went to work as a secretary in a downtown insurance office, became pregnant at 16 and, at 19, unexpectedly and uncharacteristically committed a violent act, stabbing and killing the father of her daughter.
About the Author
Jamie Lisa Forbes was raised on a ranch on the Little Laramie River thirty miles west of Laramie, Wyoming. Like many Wyoming children of her generation, she attended a one-room schoolhouse during her early school years. She received a degree in Philosophy and English from the University of Colorado in 1977. She spent the next year and a half of her life in Israel, where she met her husband. In January 1979, Ms. Forbes and her husband returned to the Little Laramie Valley where, for fifteen years, they ran the family ranch and raised two children. The Forbes family ranch was sold in 1993 and Ms. Forbes then moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. She began writing her first novel, Unbroken, while in law school. In 2011, Unbroken won the WILLA Literary Award for best outstanding fiction about women in the West. Her short story collection, The Widow Smalls and Other Stories was published by Pronghorn Press in 2014. The Widow Smalls and Other Stories won the 2015 High Plains Book Awards, short story category. Today, Ms. Forbes is a practicing attorney. She has a novel in progress. She is the proud grandmother of five grandchildren and true to her native country, still owns a horse, Cody.
