Publishers Weekly
04/09/2018
In this powerful debut memoir, Sundberg delivers a harrowing account of an abusive marriage and how she left it. Upon getting pregnant at 26, Sundberg married her boyfriend, Caleb, and over the course of eight years, Caleb went from screaming at Sundberg to beating and choking her. In their early years, the couple lived in Idaho, finding joy in their son and sometimes each other, despite Caleb’s fiery temper and Sundberg’s bouts of depression. Sundberg presents candid portraits of herself and Caleb as complicated people that transcend abuse stereotypes—she is ambitious and outgoing, and her husband is sensitive and anxious. As Sundberg found professional success as a writer, Caleb, also a writer, felt threatened and the abuse intensified. Though they attended counseling and Caleb attempted sobriety, things got worse. When Caleb smashed a ceramic bowl into her foot, causing an injury Sundberg wasn’t able to hide, she finally left him. After settling her divorce, Sundberg moved to Ohio with her son to begin a PhD program. Throughout the book, Sundberg contemplates a recurring question in the public discourse on domestic violence—why women stay with abusive men (for example, that women might overvalue the sacredness of marriage). Sundberg cogently ties together the painful chain of events in her life and the personal growth that resulted from it. (June)
From the Publisher
Goodbye, Sweet Girl is heartbreaking, breathtaking in its scope, and urgently truthful in its harrowing and tender examination of when empathy fails—and when it wins.” — Los Angeles Review
“Kelly Sundberg’s lyrical, devastating 2014 essay about domestic violence, “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” made readers hold their collective breath. It’s now expanded into a full-length memoir about Sundberg’s husband, a man who was wonderful and violent at turns.” — Elle, The 30 Best Books to Read This Summer
“Goodbye Sweet Girl is a beautiful, devastating, and nuanced story of domestic abuse and escape that does true justice to the experiences of the victims without judgment or criticism of their choices.” — Bustle
“Goodbye, Sweet Girl, bursting with such heartfelt, beautifully crafted scenes, is a gift for those who’ve experienced the pain of growing up and out of abusive relationships and a guide for those who seek insight and understanding.” — New York Journal of Books
“Mesmerizing and poetic, Goodbye Sweet Girl is a harrowing, cautionary and ultimately redemptive tale that brilliantly illuminates one woman’s transformation.” — BookReporter
“Kelly Sundberg gives one of the most brave and beautifully written accounts of a marriage gone wrong in her memoir, Goodbye, Sweet Girl. Sundberg looks at both the tenderness and the violence of her abusive marriage, while also analyzing why women remain too long in dangerous relationships.” — Brooklyn Digest
“[Goodbye, Sweet Girl helps us] to better understand each of our nuances and complexities, how any of us rationalizes our decisions, and how we find the courage to take care of ourselves and to speak our truths…. [Sundberg writes] her truth with a deep sense of compassion.” — The Millions
“Goodbye, Sweet Girl is a story of domestic violence and survival, written by Kelly Sundberg, who experienced abuse at the hands of her husband. A strong and empowering memoir, the layers of Sundberg’s life are utterly inspiring.” — Women.com, 15 Awesome Books With Strong Female Protagonists
“A fierce, frightening, soulful reckoning— Goodbye, Sweet Girl is an expertly rendered memoir that investigates why we stay in relationships that hurt us, and how we survive when we leave them. Kelly Sundberg is a force. She has written the rare book that has the power to change lives.” — Christa Parravani, author of Her: A Memoir
“Reading Kelly Sundberg’s writing—fresh, luminous, spirited—is a pleasure second only to witnessing her decision to survive. Goodbye Sweet Girl is a meditation on what it takes to save your own life.” — Ariel Levy
“In this powerful debut memoir, Sundberg delivers a harrowing account of an abusive marriage and how she left it....Sundberg cogently ties together the painful chain of events in her life and the personal growth that resulted from it.” — Publishers Weekly
“Lyrical and taut, Goodbye, Sweet Girl provides readers with an honest and critical account of partner violence.” — Booklist (starred review)
New York Journal of Books
“Goodbye, Sweet Girl, bursting with such heartfelt, beautifully crafted scenes, is a gift for those who’ve experienced the pain of growing up and out of abusive relationships and a guide for those who seek insight and understanding.
Los Angeles Review
Goodbye, Sweet Girl is heartbreaking, breathtaking in its scope, and urgently truthful in its harrowing and tender examination of when empathy fails—and when it wins.
Christa Parravani
A fierce, frightening, soulful reckoning— Goodbye, Sweet Girl is an expertly rendered memoir that investigates why we stay in relationships that hurt us, and how we survive when we leave them. Kelly Sundberg is a force. She has written the rare book that has the power to change lives.
Brooklyn Digest
Kelly Sundberg gives one of the most brave and beautifully written accounts of a marriage gone wrong in her memoir, Goodbye, Sweet Girl. Sundberg looks at both the tenderness and the violence of her abusive marriage, while also analyzing why women remain too long in dangerous relationships.
Bustle
Goodbye Sweet Girl is a beautiful, devastating, and nuanced story of domestic abuse and escape that does true justice to the experiences of the victims without judgment or criticism of their choices.
The Millions
[Goodbye, Sweet Girl helps us] to better understand each of our nuances and complexities, how any of us rationalizes our decisions, and how we find the courage to take care of ourselves and to speak our truths…. [Sundberg writes] her truth with a deep sense of compassion.
The 30 Best Books to Read This Summer Elle
Kelly Sundberg’s lyrical, devastating 2014 essay about domestic violence, “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” made readers hold their collective breath. It’s now expanded into a full-length memoir about Sundberg’s husband, a man who was wonderful and violent at turns.
15 Awesome Books With Strong Female Protagonists Women.com
Goodbye, Sweet Girl is a story of domestic violence and survival, written by Kelly Sundberg, who experienced abuse at the hands of her husband. A strong and empowering memoir, the layers of Sundberg’s life are utterly inspiring.
Ariel Levy
Reading Kelly Sundberg’s writing—fresh, luminous, spirited—is a pleasure second only to witnessing her decision to survive. Goodbye Sweet Girl is a meditation on what it takes to save your own life.”
BookReporter
Mesmerizing and poetic, Goodbye Sweet Girl is a harrowing, cautionary and ultimately redemptive tale that brilliantly illuminates one woman’s transformation.
Booklist (starred review)
Lyrical and taut, Goodbye, Sweet Girl provides readers with an honest and critical account of partner violence.
Rebecca Solnit
A shattering of the silence that enables domestic violence to continue, Goodbye, Sweet Girl shines a fierce light on how complex and sometimes joyous a relationship that’s also an abusive cage can be, why women gradually lose the orientation they need to find the exit, and how they escape when they do, or how this one did. This book is a testament—and a warning to batterers that the silence is broken, and their secrets are leaking out.
Bonnie Nadzam
With disorienting elegance Kelly Sundberg shows her readers how difficult it can be to believe even your own experiences of abuse when they begin in what seems to be a loving relationship, and unfold alongside depression and confusion arising as a result of that very abuse—and perhaps worst of all, when in the midst of such doubt, fear and sorrow, loved ones question your judgment. Kelly brings clear eyes, an open heart and the vulnerability that comes from long healing to a story of domestic grief and horrific abuse. The abuse that she long told herself, and others, was not really that bad. The writing and juxtaposition of scenes are striking and terrible in their beauty—it’s no coincidence that her story begins among men and women who both depend utterly on the mountains and forests of Idaho, and who seem hell-bent on destroying them. It is a powerful spirit indeed who not only navigated so many lonely and terrible days and nights, but who also escaped with grace, a beloved child, and the determination to share her story, difficult as that must have been. This is an important book.
Rene Denfeld
In her stunning memoir, Kelly Sundberg examines the heart-breaking bonds of love, detailing her near decade-long marriage’s slide into horrific abuse. Sundberg shares her own confusions, fears and empathy for her violent husband, even as she comes to realize he will never change. This is an immensely courageous story that will break your heart, leave you in tears, and, finally, offer hope and redemption. Brava, Kelly Sundberg.
Megan Stielstra
Goodbye, Sweet Girl is a breathtaking gut-punch of a memoir. Real talk: the story is hard. We spend so much time pretending that domestic violence doesn’t exist. We spend so much time doubting women. Enough. Sundberg gives us the truth in all its complexity; fear and hope and fury in gorgeous, near-cinematic prose that made me weep, and cheer, and understand. Here is how we save ourselves. Here is how we survive.
Roxane Gay
It is a hell of a thing to write about brutality and suffering with strength, grace, generosity and beauty. That’s precisely what Kelly Sundberg has done in her gripping memoir about marriage and domestic violence. Sundberg’s honesty is astonishing, how she laid so much of herself bare, how she did not demonize a man who deserves to be demonized. Instead, she offers a portrait of a broken man and a broken marriage and an abiding love, what it took to set herself free from it all. In shimmering, open hearted prose, she shows that it took everything.
rave review BookPage
Because of its subject matter, Goodbye, Sweet Girl might seem difficult to read, but Sundberg’s crystalline prose and insightful narration lighten the reading experience…. [her] story is haunting, propulsive and, perhaps for some readers, familiar. Her wrenching memoir deserves to be read by a wide audience so that we can all learn to recognize the signs of domestic abuse.
O Magazine
In this can’t-take-your-eyes-off-the-page memoir, hard-bitten Idaho is a savage landscape “full of sawed-off mountains,” nuclear waste, and wild animals just outside your door. But for Sundberg, the real danger shares her bed. How does a violent partner erode the terrain of your heart? And are you ever too old to run away from home?
The Los Angeles Review
Goodbye, Sweet Girl is heartbreaking, breathtaking in its scope, and urgently truthful in its harrowing and tender examination of when empathy fails—and when it wins.
Kirkus Reviews
2018-04-03
An essayist's debut memoir about her decadelong struggle to leave a violent, emotionally unstable husband.When Idaho native Sundberg met Caleb, whose "West Virginia drawl made him seem gentlemanly," she had no idea that within six months, they would be engaged and pregnant. Both were in their 20s and equally unprepared for commitment. But the author chose to forget their relationship was neither "idyllic [n]or blissful" and "love him through my fear," just as she had a childhood friend who had once chased her with a knife. Caleb's dark side surfaced not long after their engagement, as they were returning from a hunting trip. Sundberg immediately assumed responsibility for his rage and felt "grateful" when he forgave her. Caleb's sudden fits of anger soon became a permanent feature of their relationship, as did the heavy drinking he managed to keep hidden during their courtship. The author also discovered that Caleb had cheated on her with three women while they had been dating, but only after they had married. As with all of her husband's other transgressions, she accepted his tearful apologies as proof that he would change. Sundberg became depressed enough that she sought out counseling. The therapist was able to name the destructive behaviors in her marriage for what they were: domestic violence. Nevertheless, the cycle of brutality and tenderness continued. Eventually, the author and her husband moved to West Virginia. There, the author began a graduate program and found the success Caleb did not have with his own writing. Only after an especially savage incident that required police and paramedic assistance was Sundberg finally able to move on from a broken relationship and begin the long process of healing her own life. By turns wrenching and lyrical, Sundberg's book is an unflinching exploration of both domestic violence and one woman's long, often painful evolution from codependence to self-respect.A courageously honest memoir.
