AIRED: November 15, 2021
SPECIAL GUEST: Laura Davis
In the classic book, The Courage to Heal, Laura Davis and her co-author Ellen Bass helped launch the sexual abuse survivors’ movement. Now, 33 years later, Davis delivers her ultimate gift and most deeply personal book—a searing, intimate, and starkly honest memoir that reads like a page-turning novel. The Burning Light of Two Stars: A Mother-Daughter Story, is the story of her relationship with the mother who betrayed and failed to protect her so many years ago.
This captivating book once again demonstrates how Laura Davis can dig for the truth, no matter how painful, taking readers with her, in search of another kind of courage—the courage to not only forgive a parent who’s emotionally abandoned us, but to care for that parent at the end of life.
The Burning Light of Two Stars examines the endurance of mother-daughter love, how memory protects and betrays us, and the determination it takes to fulfill a promise when ghosts from the past come knocking. When she published The Courage to Heal in 1988, Laura Davis helped millions of women work through the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. But her decision to go public with her grandfather’s incest deepened an already painful estrangement with her mother, Temme.
Essential reading for therapists, survivors of sexual abuse and family trauma, caregivers of aging parents, and for anyone who loves an emotionally charged, dramatic family saga, The Burning Light of Two Stars, part memoir, part mother/daughter story, offers readers, no matter what their family dynamics, a close-up look at how healing between family members who’ve felt wronged by one another is not only possible but in fact can be the greatest joy and glory of both their lives.
ABOUT LAURA DAVIS
In her 30+ year career as an author, Laura Davis has written seven non-fiction books that have changed peoples’ lives. The Courage to Heal paved the way for hundreds of thousands to heal from the trauma of sexual abuse. Becoming the Parent You Want to Be helps parents develop a vision for the families they want to create. And I Thought We’d Never Speak Again: The Road from Estrangement to Reconciliation teaches the skills of reconciliation and peacebuilding to the world, one relationship at a time.
Laura’s groundbreaking books have been translated into 11 languages and sold more than two million copies.
Her new memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars, tells the story of Laura’s dramatic and tumultuous relationship with her mother, Temme, from the time of Laura’s birth until her mother’s death. This story about “two souls who just wouldn’t quit each other” provides a no-holds-barred peek at the real Laura–the woman behind the teacher, the facilitator, and the author.
Laura’s love of words extends into her teaching life. She loves building communities of writers and teaches weekly writing workshops online and in Santa Cruz, California. When there isn’t a pandemic, she leads transformative writing retreats in northern California, Bali, Peru, Italy, Vietnam, and other international destinations.
