The Blood on My Hands is an
autobiography by Shannon O’Leary. It was published in Feburary 2016 and is
available for sale on Amazon.
Set in 1960s and ‘70s Australia, The Blood on My Hands is the dramatic tale of Shannon O’Leary's childhood years,
growing up with an abusive father, who was a serial
killer. No one, not even the authorities, would help O’Leary and her
family. The responses of those whom O’Leary and her immediate family
reached out to for help are almost as disturbing as the crimes of her violent
father. Relatives were afraid to bring disgrace to the family’s good name, nuns
condemned the child’s objections as disobedience and noncompliance, and laws at
the time prevented the police from interfering unless someone was killed.
The Blood on My
Hands is a heartbreaking—yet riveting—narrative
of a childhood spent in pain and terror, betrayed by the people who are
supposed to provide safety and understanding. The strength and courageous
resilience it took for O’Leary to not just survive and escape from her
father, but to flourish, thrive, and triumph over the unimaginable trauma she
endured as a child is both powerful and moving.
Praise:
"The confusion, uncertainty, and sickening foreboding ring true
and offer vital insights into the experience of abuse, including the fact that
victims had few options, especially in the 1960s." - Kirkus Reviews
"The work is crisp and painfully honest, moving from scene to scene
both artfully and factually. Both the mundane and the impossible are treated with
equal care, masterfully knitting together the various pieces of O’Leary’s
tormented past.” - Red City Review
"The Blood on
My Hands is a powerful, dark memoir… This is a story that is going to
remain in my mind for a long time.” - 4 Stars, Readers’ Favorite
“Once I picked this up I could not put it down, I needed to see how
they got away from the monster who called himself their father, who called
himself a husband.” – Sarah on Goodreads
“I thoroughly enjoyed this book
despite the subject matter and hope it manages to help at least one child know
that it gets better, life gets better.” – 5 Stars, Sarah Purdy
About the Author:
Shannon O’Leary is
a prolific writer and performer. She is the author of several books of poetry
and children’s stories, and she has won many awards for song-writing.
Shannon has acted
and directed on the stage and on Australian national TV, and she runs her own
production company.
She has numerous
graduate and post-graduate degrees in education, music, and science. She is a
teacher and academic, has five children with her deceased former husband, and
lives with her longtime partner in Sydney, Australia.
Her memoir The Blood on My Hands was published in
February 2016 and is available for sale on Amazon and Createspace.
Back Cover
EXCERPT
Prologue
I have felt the cold steel of a gun in my
mouth and against my temple.
I have tasted warm blood on my lips and witnessed
horrific scenes of mutilation, where nameless people took their last breaths.
In my life, I have experienced poverty, met people who had plenty, and lived
through fire, floods, and drought. I have befriended the intellectually
challenged and physically impaired and have known the mentally ill and misfits
who were geniuses. I also assumed anonymity with my mother and brothers without
people realizing we had disappeared.
In my youth I was exposed to many facets of
raw emotion.
I’ve seen a living heart, beating and
pulsating for its last time; seen broken fingers tossed in the wind; and
watched a severed head dance. Tormented by recurring memories, I have chosen to
write this book and put these ghosts to rest.
I first contemplated suicide at the age of
four.
I devised my death plan down to the very
last detail but never had the courage to see it through to completion. Instead,
my mother’s face would keep interceding, begging me to stay alive. Faced with
the fact that I could not inflict my death upon her, I’d pray for miraculous
intervention. During hysterical bouts of entreaty, I would beg Jesus to strike us
dead at exactly the same moment so that neither of us would feel the pain of
enforced separation or the prolonged agony of death.
As a child, I dreamed of better things to
come and lived in spiritualistic hope that one day my world would change. I
thought my trauma was normal and didn’t know what other families experienced. I
thought fear, sad- ness, and horror were just the by-products of a barely
tolerable childhood. My self-esteem was nonexistent, and after a while I sought
approval through the creative arts. I loved to sing, and as my voice was
strong, I sang to cover my feelings of inadequacy and desolation. To me, music
represented true happiness, a make-believe world where I could cling to
melodious sounds instead of the tortured screaming of my nightmares.
As an adult, I have felt exhilaration when
audiences clapped and called my name. At the same time, I have felt myself torn
in two, experiencing the immobilizing fear of personal exposure when not
protected by the proscenium arch of a stage. When I present myself without
camouflage or without a scripted character to protect me, my gut wrenches
itself into a catatonic knot, an all-enveloping state of fear. If I feel I am
being examined on a personal level, my arms and legs become frozen, and I feel
my soul moving toward automatic pilot. I smile and behave in the correct
manner, but I’m mentally blank and devoid of all feeling.
I know what it’s like to be branded, to be
labeled, and to work within the confines of a title. As a child I was called brilliant,
genius, a child prodigy, and a precocious little troublemaker. I was also
called an actress, liar, and evil. My teachers admitted they didn’t understand
me and often left me to myself. As an adult, I experienced national fame as a
children’s TV personality. I have brought joy to thousands of children by
teaching them the elements of performance.
It brings me great fulfillment to see
children experiencing happiness. It puts my own life in perspective.
I cannot find the words to describe my
childhood. Words such as “passionately naive,” “emotionally lacerated,” and
“holistically experiential” all pale in significance, in the shadow of living itself.
My childhood was so creatively textured that it carried into adulthood without
allowing me to become consumed by the insanity playing havoc around me. I am
sane and strong, and for that I am eternally grateful. I
have felt and seen extreme emotion. I have smelled my own flesh burning. I know
what it feels like to have baby snakes wriggle across my body, to smell decay,
and to see an eyeball popped between someone’s fingers. Alone, I have spent
what seemed like hours in a blackened hole, a makeshift grave with a steel
curtain, waiting for death.
Through all this, I stayed courageous and
strong.
I treasure the power of love and the
absurdity of shock, and I deal with these emotions on a day-to-day basis.
This is the story of my childhood.
