The Other Side

“The frankness and eloquence of Johnson’s writing puts this true-crime memoir in a league of its own.”—Marie Claire

“The Other Side” [is] written with both fury and restraint. The reader feels pulled onto a fast train, in a compartment with a narrator telling an intimate and terrifying tale.” –Wall Street Journal

“The Other Side is about more than the crime. It’s about how complicated abusive relationships actually are. It’s about how we tell and re-tell the stories that shape our lives.”—The Houston Chronicle

“The Other Side is neither flowery nor stale, never shy or gratuitous. Instead, its haunting beauty grips the reader from the opening line…The Other Side is unforgettable.”—The Austin Chronicle

“The shock of violence, the uncertainty of memory, and the jagged path of healing are the skillfully braided strands of The Other Side, Lacy M. Johnson’s poetic, harrowing new memoir about an abusive and very nearly deadly relationship.”—Oregonian

“[Johnson’s] direct and honest prose not only evokes empathy, but an incendiary anger knowing that this existence is not just a reality for Johnson, but for countless other women as well.”—Houston Press

“The tension between fact and perception forms the book s intellectual backbone, and though “The Other Side” begins as a true-crime story, it flowers into an investigation of memory.” Texas Observer

“The Other Side is powerful in its effort to do the impossible.”—San Antonio Current

“On a meta-level, The Other Side is not only about the desire to understand what is ultimately incomprehensible, but also about the messy, complicated work of translating personal experience for public audiences.”—The San Francisco Chronicle

“Written. . . in short chunks of powerful prose, not always chronological (though perfectly clear to follow), circling closer and closer to that day, finally zooming in on what exactly happened in that basement” –Star Tribune

“The Other Side [is] a powerful memoir.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“This captivating memoir is as troubling as it is compelling. In The Other Side, Johnson relates the wrenching story of her victimization by an older man with whom she willingly became involved.” —Real Change News
“Ferociously beautiful and courageous, Johnson s intimate story sheds light on the perpetuation of violence against women.” –Kirkus, Starred Review

“Johnson s matter-of-fact retelling of the horrors that befell her is by turns poetic and journalistic but harrowing all the way through.”—Library Journal, Starred Review

“This riveting narrative of a young woman’s kidnapping and rape at the hands of a former boyfriend moves fluently between dissociation and healing.” –Publisher’s Weekly

“Johnson s memoir is an extraordinary document, and she herself holds an important place in a movement to stop violence against women.”—The Rumpus

“The descriptions are vivid and the victim is, of course, real. But throughout The Other Side Johnson s choices are literary rather than cathartic and by the end of the book, we can only conclude that the two are one and the same. Johnson survives this experience, and the result of her years of reflection and gained insight is a well-crafted memoir that will make her a notable figure in her chosen genre.”
—Newcity Lit

“Gritty and gripping . . . Johnson s haunting and powerful memoir is told with such intensely lyrical prose, it demands that you push any light, fluffy summer books aside and commit fully to this skillfully woven, disorienting narrative. Reading The Other Side is thrilling.
—CultureMap Austin

“Unsparing in both its brutality and its beauty. It knocked me out and lifted me up.” —Carrie Brownstein, Sleater-Kinney and “Portlandia”

“In this brilliant memoir, Lacy Johnson offers us a guide to the impossible how to reconstruct a past when the past itself is shattered, each memory broken into pieces, left rattling around inside us. Sometimes flashes of poetry are all that we can find in the wreckage, sometimes these flashes are all that can possibly save us, brought together for brief, burning instances, and then let go. “The Other Side” bristles with life and energy and to read it is to be transformed.” —Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

“Wow. Just…Wow. The Other Side is the sonic boom of a powerful story meeting an even more powerful storyteller. It’s hard to say anything about a book that leaves you this breathless. Lacy Johnson is my new literary hero.” —Mat Johnson, author of Pym

“Lacy M. Johnson s powerfully moving and brilliantly structured memoir, The Other Side, asks, How is it possible to reclaim the body after devastating violence? Her intense desire and demand for a life lived in the body is triumphant. Johnson s strength to free not only her physical self, but also to move through years of incapacitating fear by writing this book, is breathtaking ‘I lift the chain from my neck, over my head, let it rattle to the floor’.” —Kellie Groom, author of I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl