Snakes in the Loo

The "childhood story of abuse" is no stranger to memoir. From the works of Frank McCourt to Augusten Burroughs, readers have proven to be fascinated by stories of what others have suffered-perhaps because of the catharsis than can come from feeling someone else's pain. But what of the story beyond childhood-the story of what happens when a child with a twisted worldview becomes an adult, enters a marriage, and tries to serve God? And what of God Himself-of the difference He can make to such a life and the process He can take the grown-up child through?Snakes in the Loo tells the story of its author, Yaya, in two parts. Part I is a narrative of her childhood, told in detached third-person as she recounts her nautical family's drifting from tropical home to tropical home and their eventual settling, after a traumatic evacuation from revolutionary Irian Jaya, in England. The journey is triply hard for a child to navigate because she is dealing not only with the constant changing of her world, but also with a neglectful, self-centered mother and a charismatic but sexually abusive father. Part II recounts a very different journey, with its roots in childhood and its branches reaching to God for help. Written as a series of first-person journal entries, Part II shows up-close the struggles of an adult trying to change her perspective of herself, her work, and her world, with the step-by-step help of a personal, loving, powerful God. Snakes in the Loo bridges a literary gap by chronicling the difficult process of changing one set of beliefs for another. Many books outline how thought processes need to change, and many more tell us what "healthy responses" look like. But not much describes the process of getting from the "bad side" to the "good side." Snakes in the Loo looks unflinchingly at how messy it can be in the middle of the gap, when you're screaming out in pain and there seems to be no way forward. Yaya takes the mystique out of the middle, messy part of change, passing on to readers a pathway, hope, and courage to go through their changes in whatever way God speaks to them.