Both Sides of Then

When a young girl discovers her parents’ painful life secrets, her sense of self unravels, eliciting a long path to healing, acceptance, and love.

Jennifer is thirteen and living a quiet teenage existence when her parents reveal their innermost secrets: her mother has found the child she relinquished as a baby, and her father no longer wants to be part of the family. As Jennifer’s young life unravels, she begins to self-destruct.

Anna, Jennifer’s mother, is deeply affected by losing her parents at a young age and by her subsequent strict upbringing in a Baptist orphanage. Thrust into a changing world ill-prepared, she finds herself pregnant and unwed during a time when society shunned these young mothers.

Both Sides of Then is the story of a mother and daughter’s search for agency. Jennifer shares her difficult path to self-acceptance while piecing together her mother's young life using vignettes shared throughout her childhood. By writing from her mother’s perspective, would Jennifer eventually understand her mother? Would she see her own life more clearly?

A coming-of-age book and in-depth exploration of family frailty and resilience, Both Sides of Then is a daring take on the power of the female voice, even after it’s been silenced.

"It is a great act of love when a daughter works hard to fully understand her mother’s life. In Both Sides of Then, Jennifer Griffith does exactly that. This memoir chronicles a daughter making sense of her own experience by unraveling the mystery of her mother’s life. I wept, I laughed, and I wanted to call my mum after I finished this beautiful book.” —Julie Barton, New York Times bestselling author of Dog Medicine

“Jennifer Griffith's steely, calm voice is a marvel of compassion as she boldly inhabits her mother's pain in order to understand her own. Both Sides of Then is a mesmerizing journey through empathy to forgiveness, written with clear-eyed bravery and love.” —Rachel Howard, author of The Lost Night and The Risk of Us

“In Both Sides of Then, Jennifer Griffith expertly weaves her story of a troubled childhood with her mother's experience growing up an orphan. We come to understand two fundamental truths: we inherit much more than we realise and the only narrative more elemental than our own is our mother's. This compelling memoir expertly explores family history, abandonment, resilience, and ultimately, an imperfect but honest kind of love.” —Shanti Brien, author of Almost Innocent