Mystery writer Patton (Death and the Devil’s Revenge) makes his nonfiction debut with an unflinching examination of his tumultuous childhood. In anecdotes both hopeful and dire, Patton recounts growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father, and his own attempts to escape the cycle of abuse as an adult. “There is no yardstick for measuring the depth of the scars when your beatings begin as a baby,” he begins, setting the stage for an unvarnished, hyperdetailed account of his early years in West Virginia as the youngest of four children. He renders his first experience crashing a bicycle and the first time he saw his father hit his mother with equal intensity. Though the bulk of the narrative covers Patton’s coming-of-age, the most powerful chapters concern his adulthood, during which Patton grappled with the traumas his father suffered before Patton was born. Ultimately, he manages to extend hard-won empathy to his tormentor long after he’d died of a heart attack. Though occasionally long-winded, Patton is a forceful writer, bestowing his harrowing narrative with page-turning momentum. Readers looking to heal their own family trauma will find comfort here. (Self-published)