Dirt Roads and Diner Pie

Shonna Milliken Humphrey

• Publisher: Central Recovery Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781942094227
• eBook ISBN:
  9781942094234
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Against a backdrop of highways, diners, and cheap coffee, one couple finds peace through the redemptive power of love. Told from a wife's perspective, Dirt Roads and Diner Pie is the story of one couple's struggle to confront the long-reaching effects of childhood sexual abuse.Musician and former lead singer of the United States Air Force Band, Travis James Humphrey lived for thirty months in a culture of childhood sexual abuse while studying at New Jersey's prestigious American Boychoir School. After his tenure, Travis buried his memories deep. Years into the marriage, these memories began to surface and threaten their relationship. In an effort to resolve the problems, Shonna and her husband hit the road and navigated their way through the treacherous terrain of mental illness, sexual dysfunction, and shame. She details their journey within a month-long road trip throughout the southeastern United States taken shortly after Travis made his experience public.While the effect of child sex abuse informs nearly every aspect of their shared life, it does not define their relationship. That is the message Shonna offers: Sexual trauma may dominate, but it need not define the relationship. Shonna Milliken Humphrey's nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Salon.com, Down East, and Maine magazine. For two years, she wrote regular food, restaurant, and lifestyle columns for the Maine Sunday Telegram. She holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing and Literature from Bennington College.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Author’s Note
• Prologue • The Beginning
• Chapter One • Between Desire & Piety
• Chapter Two • Estimated Time of Departure
• Chapter Three • Push Away the Blanket
• Chapter Four • First Corinthians
• Chapter Five • New Jersey Legal
• Chapter Six • New Jersey, Redux
• Chapter Seven • No Escape from New Jersey
• Chapter Eight • Diner Pie
• Chapter Nine • Capital Affair
• Chapter Ten • Working Musician
• Chapter Eleven • Trigger Warning
• Chapter Twelve • Guitar Store Bunny Ranch
• Chapter Thirteen • Heritage, Not Hate
• Chapter Fourteen • Bluebird & Parnassus
• Chapter Fifteen • Alabama February
• Chapter Sixteen • Voodoo
• Chapter Seventeen • The Children of Your People
• Chapter Eighteen • Florida Riviera
• Chapter Nineteen • Panama Beachcombers
• Chapter Twenty • Congregation of Alligators
• Chapter Twenty-One • Lost in the Book Mine
• Chapter Twenty-Two • The Power of Recollection
• Chapter Twenty-Three • Low-Country Blues
• Chapter Twenty-Four • Don’t ask, Don’t Tell
• Chapter Twenty-Five • Moving Through Rowland
• Chapter Twenty-Six • Genetic Trash
• Chapter Twenty-Seven • Name-Dropping DC Two-Step
• Chapter Twenty-Eight • Home
• Chapter Twenty-Nine • End of Discussion
• Epilogue • Pipe & Drape
• Acknowledgments
• Resources