Memory Slips: A Memoir of Music and Healing

Concert pianists perform from memory, a brutal but inescapable convention of musical life. Of all the demons they face onstage, none is greater than the fear of a memory slip. Cutting's bitter, dignified memoir tells the story of a musical life nearly shipwrecked by childhood molestation at the hands of her minister father. Beginning with a terrifying slip that triggers the gradual breakdown of a successful concert career, the narrative moves through hospitalization, painfully recovered childhood memories, and finally, a struggle toward compassionate understanding and a truce with the past. Throughout, she weaves the powerful theme of music: as a bribe, an addiction, a joy, and an escape.