Dr. Kelly Sundberg, author of ‘Goodbye, Sweet Girl’
An excerpt of Ohio University alum Dr. Kelly Sundberg’s memoir Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival was featured in Good Housekeeping.
Sundberg, who earned a Ph.D. in English from the College of Arts & Sciences in 2018, is now a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at OHIO.
“Here, Kelly describes how she found herself committing to Caleb – a man she thought was ‘funny, warm, and supportive’ at first. But after the birth of their son, Reed, Caleb revealed a violent and dangerous dark side that, in addition to a lingering depression, was difficult for Kelly to grapple with – until a perceptive therapist helped her understand what was really going on in her own home,” says the Good Housekeeping introduction.
The excerpt begins with Sundberg’s pregnancy:
The day the test came back with two blue stripes, I put on my jeans and The Flicks T-shirt – the one with Alfred Hitchcock on the back – and drove to work. The Flicks was an indie movie house, and I worked there with artsy types who had lines of poetry tattooed on their forearms, dyed hair, and Converse sneakers. We wanted to make art. Children were not a part of our collective plan.
That morning I strode through the kitchen – past the assistant manager who was making curried sweet potato soup over the large gas range – stood before the espresso machine, turned the machine on to make a latte, and stopped.
I didn’t know if I could drink coffee. Coffee might be poison now. I listened to the whirring of the espresso grinder, the machine grinding the beans into fragments, and peered at my reflection in the brushed steel. I’m not ready, I mouthed.
Read the entire excerpt in Good Housekeeping.
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