abuse

The weight of their family secrets could not have shaped Pearl and Ruby Crenshaw any differently. Ruby's a runner, living in Dallas and only reluctantly talking to their mother, Birdie, when she calls from prison. Pearl is still living in her mother's fixer-upper and finds herself facing a line in the sand: her weight is threatening to kill her. She's hundreds of pounds beyond the point where she can celebrate her curves or benefit from the body positivity movement, and unless she takes drastic action, the future looks dire.

The weight of their family secrets could not have shaped Pearl and Ruby Crenshaw any differently. Ruby's a runner, living in Dallas and only reluctantly talking to their mother, Birdie, when she calls from prison. Pearl is still living in her mother's fixer-upper and finds herself facing a line in the sand: her weight is threatening to kill her. She's hundreds of pounds beyond the point where she can celebrate her curves or benefit from the body positivity movement, and unless she takes drastic action, the future looks dire.

Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult, Children of God. She later served as an intelligence officer for the US Army for over six years, making the rank of Captain. She writes of her life in "Uncultured: A Memoir."

Writer, journalist, and media critic Ken Auletta reported on Harvey Weinstein 20 years ago.But the story continued to nag at him. What was at the root of Weinstein’s monstrousness? How, and why, was it never checked? Why the silence? How does a man run the day-to-day operations of a company with hundreds of employees and revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and at the same time live a shadow life of sexual predation without ever being caught? How much is this an account of Harvey Weinstein, and how much is this a report about Hollywood and power?He never stopped working on the story. He continued to communicate with Harvey, even in prison, to go deeper to embed Harvey’s narrative within the context of his childhood, his relationships, and the movie business. Film stars, Miramax employees, old friends, and family all talked to Ken at length. The result is the biography, "Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence."

In 1982, Erika Schickel was expelled from her East Coast prep school for sleeping with a teacher. She was "that girl" — rebellious, precocious, and macking for love. Seduced, caught, and then whisked away in the night to avoid scandal, Schickel’s provocative, searing, and darkly funny memoir, "The Big Hurt," explores the question: How did that girl turn out?

Actor and author Alan Cumming's new memoir, “Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life,” chronicles the actor’s life in Hollywood and the ways in which work has repeatedly whisked him away from personal calamities to sets and stages around the world.

On today’s 51%, we bring you part two of our series on rape and sexual abuse. Last week we visited the Crime Victim Services Unit of a hospital to learn…

On today’s 51%, we bring you the first part of a two-part series on rape and sexual abuse. I visit the crime victim services unit of a hospital to learn…

A former Olympian has been indicted on multiple counts of indecent assault and battery allegedly committed at a Berkshire County summer camp in the 1970s.…

A long-awaited report on conditions in a former Burlington, Vermont orphanage finds abuse occurred there, but there is no evidence of murder.Two years…