Margot Peters

Exorcising Emma Margot Peters

Holding a doctorate in Victorian literature and women's studies, author Margot Peters has written seven biographies of famous writers and actors. Now, she turns her talents toward her own life with this powerful new memoir and looks into the past of one of the most important women in her young life: her grandmother.

As Peters chronicles a childhood full of abuse and invective, it becomes clear that Emma wasn't your typical grandmother. Peters spent her formative years living in Emma's house-knowing no possible escape from her grandmother's insults and punishments. The only way Peters could fight back was through childish rebellion and simmering anger.

But Peters isn't a little girl anymore-she has the maturity and experience to try to unpack the mystery that was Emma's life. Why was she so bitter? What turned her into the woman she became? As Peters dives deeply into her grandmother's past and the history of their small community of Wausau, Wisconsin, she realizes that the answers won't be easy to find. She doesn't, however, give up the search. In the end, her exploration of one woman's life reveals startling truths about her own.