"Ashley C. Ford brings listeners into her life in this outstanding coming-of-age story...Listeners will cheer as Ford attends college and weep as she visits her father in prison, and when he is finally released." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner This program is read by the author, and includes a bonus conversation between the author and Clint Smith. One of the most prominent voices of her generation debuts with an extraordinarily powerful memoir: the story of a childhood defined by the looming absence of her incarcerated father. Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. There are just a few problems: he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there. She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates. When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration . . . and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down. Somebody’s Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor, Black girl in Indiana with a family fragmented by incarceration, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she embarks on a powerful journey to find the threads between who she is and what she was born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books "Ashley Ford's prose is glass—so clear, sharp and smooth that the reader sees, in vivid focus, her complicated childhood, brilliant mind, and golden heart. The gravity and urgency of Somebody’s Daughter anchored me to my chair and slowed my heartbeat—like no book has since Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Ashley Ford is a writer for the ages, and Somebody’s Daughter will be a book of the year." -- Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed and founder of Together Rising "This remarkable, heart-wrenching story of loss, hardship, and self-acceptance astounds." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review “Ford’s wrenchingly brilliant memoir is truly a classic in the making. The writing is so richly observed and so suffused with love and yearning that I kept forgetting to breathe while reading it.” -- John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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“A classic in the making. The writing is so richly observed and so suffused with love and yearning that I kept forgetting to breathe while reading it.”
— John Green, New York Times bestselling author
“A radiant coming-of-age memoir.”
— Oprah Daily“By telling her truth so honestly and authentically, Ford invites us to tell ours, too.”
— Washington Post“[The] wondrous story of how Ford came through the fire and emerged triumphant, as her own unapologetic, Black-girl self.”
— New York Times“Ford brings listeners into her life in this outstanding coming-of-age story…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile“Her understanding that the ones we love are imperfect crafts a shining star for the reader to follow.”
— San Francisco Chronicle“This remarkable, heart-wrenching story of loss, hardship, and self-acceptance astounds.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“There are no neat solutions, only honest ones. In showing that, this empathetic and sharply written memoir shines.”
— PopSugar“So clear, sharp, and smooth that the reader sees, in vivid focus, Ford’s complicated childhood, brilliant mind, and golden heart.”
— Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling authorBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Ashley C. Ford is a writer, host, and educator, the former host of The Chronicles of Now podcast, co-host of The HBO companion podcast Lovecraft Country Radio, seasons one and three of MasterCard’s Fortune Favors The Bold, as well as the video interview series Profile by BuzzFeed News and the Brooklyn-based news and culture TV show, 112BK. She was also the host of the first season of Audible's literary interview series, Authorized. She was named among Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 in Media in 2017, Brooklyn Magazine's Brooklyn 100 (2016), Time Out New York's New Yorkers of The Year (2017), and Variety’s New Power of New York (2019).