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Marlayna Glynn Brown became an unlikely voice when she burst onto the literary scene with OVERLAY, the Next Generation prize winning memoir of her early childhood in 1970s Las Vegas. Then came CITY OF ANGELES, the author's account of her dedication to constructing the life of her childhood dreams. Here is the author's testimony about how the 'sins of the fathers' threatened her travels through a long-in-coming crippling depression. Readers will find BIG an urgent enlightenment for adult children of alcoholics everywhere. In bold fashion featuring her lasered self-scrutiny and heartbreaking honesty, the author records the trials and surprises she faced when struggling with the double whammy of single parenthood and resultant clinical depression. Her dreams crushed, the author's prose creates a lasting impact on readers driven to understand the indelible effects of an unfortunate childhood upon adulthood. Determined to rise above her early beginnings, the author does her best to raise four children alone, struggling to fill the roles of both mother and father. Her failed marriage, financial insecurities, and repeated firings due to her inability to balance work and motherhood threaten to drive the author down. Recognizing the only person who can save you is yourself, the author finally finds her voice, and through it - her strength: "I'm just one person with a story to tell, one person who once thought that a bad childhood provided an endless number of excuses for failure." For the author, storytelling itself is the source of forgiveness - both of self and others, and in BIG the journey to happiness - through forgiveness - is the ultimate redemptive mission.