Pieces of Pie: Surviving Love

Pie Dumas’ new book opens to a lonely little girl sitting in a cardboard house, decorating its interior walls with the smiling faces of imaginary family members. That image seems to linger—as indelible as the colored marker young Pie draws with—all the way through to the book’s final, moving paragraphs.

Flimsy as the cardboard walls are and no matter how often they must be rebuilt, redecorated and refastened with brown shipping tape, they are the youngster’s only sanctuary from the horrific betrayal she is subjected to almost daily, and which she represses entirely from her awareness. Well into young adulthood, Pie similarly must build and rebuild her own fragile identity, until such time she can face her darkest nightmares and connect with her genuine self.

On one level PIECES OF PIE tells a raw and candid story of Pie’s inner struggle with the bewildering implications of childhood incest—and for this reason alone, it’s a book for anyone who longs to reconnect with their authentic spirit. On another level, it is a richly detailed and readable travelogue and adventure story, which takes the reader … … from a drab inner office in Ohio where young Pie is forced by her father into years of child labor … to the carnival circuit, where she lugs her father’s merchandise display cases … to seedy, brutal underworld encounters, affairs with black men, fashionable life in a swank Central Park apartment, and a private audience with the king of Thailand.

Ultimately, this is an exhilarating tale of self-discovery, of a reunion of spirit, and of a full life that only really begins as the last page is turned.

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