Q1. Hello, can you please introduce yourself? Readers would love to know more about you.
My name is Jesse René Gibbs and I am the author of Girl Hidden. I am an artist, designer, dancer and survivor. I am a stepmother to four, Amma to four more and blessed beyond measure with the family that I chose.
This book is based on the true story of my life, gleaned from years of my mother’s writings, my grandmother’s journals and my own experiences. I did my best to showcase the depth of damage that growing up with a narcissistic parent can have on a person, and how hard it is to come to terms with the amount of gaslighting that comes with that life. My siblings all have their own stories of being played against each other, bullied and even emotionally tortured by our parents. We were trained to not trust our own intuition, raised in a life of poverty, a lack of privacy and the endlessly traumatizing purity culture.
I was hunted in my own home by the man my mother married and escaped at nineteen only to land in an intentional community in Chicago that did nearly as much damage. My best friend in the book is also real, and she did more to walk me through my trauma, and she is the main reason that these stories were finally published.
My new life in Seattle didn’t start until well into my thirties, and I’m still working on deconstructing my life up to that point. I wrote this book to organize my life in my own mind and to undo years of lies. I also wrote it because others need to know that they are not alone.
Q2. What were the key challenges you faced while writing your book “Girl Hidden: A Memoir”?
Girl Hidden is a book written when I had space to walk through the memories, do research or interviews and write. It took nearly twenty-five years, and I would write the version of my story and my memories that I knew to be true, then I would page through my mother’s letters, my grandmother’s journals or just do online research until I was able to nail down the full truth.
Part of it was just struggling to put my story on the page and part of it was not wanting to sort through my memories. I went through a lot of therapy during the writing of the book which forced me to face some of the awful experiences and abuse that I experienced which would allow me to finally get back to writing. I also had my best friend, June, to help carry me through. She is my rock, and I don’t know what I would have done without her daily encouragement.
Q3. What books or authors have most influenced your own writing?
I’m a huge fan of Robert Fulgum’s writing (if you haven’t read All I Ever Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, stop what you’re doing and go read it). I was also very influenced by the way that The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls made me feel.
Q4. What’s your favourite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?
I travel a lot and while I’m a huge fan of a good adventure, I’m a homebody by nature. My favorite spot in the world is my garden. It brings me an inordinate amount of peace.
Q5. Is there lots to do before you dive in and start writing a book?
For this book, I had a metric ton of research to do. My grandmother sent me all her journals, court documents, FBI files, my mother’s letters and much, much more to wade through. I did interviews with people who were involved in the story, and I have my own collection of letters from Momma. It was trying, to say the least.
Q6. How long did it take you to write your book ‘Girl Hidden: A Memoir’?
It took nearly twenty-five years. I write from the heart, from my emotional core. Which means, for me to tell a good story I must feel that story in nearly every way. Which is one of the reasons that Girl Hidden took so long to be released. It was exceptionally hard to dive into the emotions of the abuse that I endured just to tell my story.
I would start with a story that I wanted to add to the book. Start writing from my experience and my memories and get it all down on paper. I would rewrite, cry, write again and repeat. Then I would dive into the myriad of boxes that my grandmother collected over the years that were filled with documentation about my experiences: court documents, my mother’s letters, my grandmother’s journals. And often I would find that my version of the events had multiple layers and extended stories that I knew nothing about.
I would meet with my therapist to walk through the pain of rewriting my history in my own mind, talk with my wonderful bestie, June, and usually cry again. Then it was back to writing, rewriting, or adding to the story until it made sense on the page and matched both my experiences and the truth of the documentation.
For example, my mother gave birth to me while in the Navy, stationed in Rota, Spain. Which is already an interesting story, but finding out through my mother’s letters just how little she wanted a child and through the doctor’s notes that she was trying to starve me to death for the first three months of my life was devastating. She stated in her letters that I, a newborn baby, was overwhelming demanding and shouldn’t be able to “demand that I feed her on her timeline.” So, back to the drawing board with that chapter.
It was a challenge every step of the way, but through the writing process I began to find healing and closure. June held my hand and cried with me and helped me sort through all the research that needed to be done to make Girl Hidden a reality.
Q7. On what platforms can readers buy your books?
It’s available in online, paperback and audiobook form. You can find it on Amazon, Google, Goodreads and you can request it from your favorite bookstore.
Q8. Tell us about the process of coming up with the book cover and the title ‘Girl Hidden: A Memoir’?
The book cover is a photograph of the farmhouse taken by my best friend, and the back cover is the water tower from the Liledoun house, also taken by June. After the second kidnapping I was in hiding for more than two years, and I was constantly hiding from my narcissistic mother and abusive stepfather, so the title just fit.
Q9. When writing a book how do you keep things fresh, for both your readers and also yourself?
Girl Hidden is the story of my life, and it was written first and foremost for me. It was important to stay true to myself and my story. You’ll notice that the book is written in third person and that’s because I don’t personally enjoy reading stories written in first person. It was much more of a challenge, but I wanted to write a story that I would want to read. Over the course of the writing, I realized that this story was becoming a survivors guide for others who have experienced and survived abuse or narcissistic relationships.
Q10. What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?
I think the best advice I ever got was to just get it down on paper; organize it later, but for heaven’s sake, get it written. And honestly, the worst advice I was given was given in kindness; the lady said, “write it in first person, it doesn’t make sense in third person.” And I tried, I really did. I rewrote entire chapters in first person, but I didn’t like it. And at the end of the day, I needed to be happy with my book. So, it got switched back.
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