William’s “poetic and suspenseful” memoir, The Parts of Him I Kept: The Gifts of My Father’s Madness, hits shelves on April 27th, 2025.
The Parts of Him I Kept is an intimate account by Williams of the profound nature of her father’s schizophrenic delusions, the isolating stigma he shouldered, and the exceptional insights he shared. In the tradition of Michael Greenberg’s Hurry Down Sunshine and Robert Kolker’s Hidden Valley Road, Williams investigates the limits of our medical and cultural understanding of schizophrenia while chronicling the burden, heartache, and privilege of caring for those who fall far from the tree. Told in a series of vignettes, Williams shares a raw, unfiltered view of her life, the profound affect mental illness can have on a family, and the great capacity we have for love.
“Many children raised by a parent with severe mental illness struggle to describe the seemingly indescribable, often contradictory burden of both loving and fearing the most important person in their life. But in The Parts of Him I Kept, Natasha Williams explores that and more. Her achingly exquisite memoir takes us on a journey through complex trauma and unexpected tenderness…” said John Sibley Williams, Author of Skin Memory and The Drowning House.
“What elevates The Parts of Him I Kept to being a timeless memoir is Williams’ ability to draw the reader into a vivid and lyrically rendered world… she takes us on a journey that is poignant, hilarious, and yes, at times dangerous, even deadly. But in the end, Williams asks us to rethink the limit to what love can endure.” said Daisy Foote, Author of Bhutan and Horton Foote: The Road to Home.
The Parts of Him I Kept: The Gifts of My Father’s Madness is available wherever books are sold.
Description:
One cold night in April, Natasha’s father drove his car into the frigid water of New York Bay with her two-year-old half-sister in the backseat. She was the one to walk him past the column of hungry reporters demanding an explanation. The headline in The Daily News read: Back from a Watery Grave. But Natasha’s experiences growing up with her schizophrenic father in the gritty New York City of the 1970s are not so easily captured in a single headline. How could she possibly convey the power of her father’s love in the face of this tragedy? The Parts of Him I Kept is an intimate account of coming of age in the face of a father’s schizophrenic unraveling. In the tradition of Michael Greenberg’s Hurry Down Sunshine and Robert Kolker’s Hidden Valley Road, Williams explores the limits of our understanding of schizophrenia and chronicles the burden and privilege of caring for a mentally ill family member.
About the author:
Natasha Williams has worked as an adjunct biology professor at SUNY Ulster in the Hudson Valley of New York and as a consultant for the International Public School Network, coaching science teachers. She has an MA from the University of Pennsylvania and, in the summer of 2020, she accepted a spot with the Bread Loaf School of English and attended the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in 2023. Excerpts of The Parts of Him I Kept, forthcoming Spring 2025 from Apprentice House Press, have been published in the Bread Loaf Journal, Change Seven, LIT, Memoir Magazine, Onion River Review, Writers Read, Post Road, and South Dakota Review.
About Apprentice House:
Apprentice House is the nation’s first and largest entirely student-managed book publisher. Students at Loyola University Maryland are responsible for every aspect of the publishing process, from acquisitions to design and publication of every book. Our mission is, first and foremost, to educate students about the book publishing process.
As a program within the Communication Department at Loyola University Maryland, it is driven by student work conducted in four courses: Introduction to Book Publishing, Manuscript Acquisitions and Development, Book Design and Production, and Book Marketing and Promotion.
Students in these courses serve as staff in Apprentice House’s acquisitions, design, and marketing departments, respectively.