Pip Brennan

Not My Story is my first book; a memoir of a home invasion, assault, recovery, parenting and a love affair. My kitchen sink memoir. The mosaic image that appears on the cover was inspired by an excellent radio program on Post-traumatic stress I happened to catch one day. The interviewee noted how important it is for trauma survivors not to think about putting the pieces of their lives back together, like a broken vase where the cracks and weakness are all too apparent. Far better to create something beautiful, special, strong but different – a mosaic that uses all the broken pieces but rearranges them in a sturdy, transformed, stunning new framework which is stronger, beautiful, and different from before. In the more than 12 years since the home invasion and the book's appearance, I have tried to ensure Something Good came out of it all. I tried to find meaning in the madness. I learned that there are no meanings and many meanings, and this is just one of them; my mosaic piece, Not My Story.