"Life in a nutshell is not possible"

If you can summarize your life up in a "nutshell" then you have not "lived".

I was told by an "author" "friend" (I use both those terms loosely) that I have to conform to make it as an author.

I am a non conformist and that is not going to change. But, I did write this "Query Letter" thing like he told me to. So if anyone is out there listening, take away from what I write what you will, criticize me, call me a liar, or just say nothing.

I may not be a "real writer", but I have lived through a hundred lifetimes and there is a story in each one of them.

This my first "query letter" draft (I know it needs work) Suggestions are welcome.

QUERY LETTER


If you are expecting the “average” victim/survivor memoir this is not it!

Augusten Burroughs’ “Running with Scissors” would be as close as I can compare my memoir to, only more sick and twisted with criminal elements and a more perverse sense of humor.

I am a convicted felon (for a crime I did not commit) hiding from my abusive mother, her child molesting husband and incestuous child raping grandfather. On top of that, my ex-husband (who has two warrants) and ex mother in-law have tried to kill me and were trying to take my children away from me..

Did I mention that my mother and grandfather got me arrested and had my bail amount of $1,000,000 dollars (they got a corrupt judge and former neighbor to set the bail; it was later overturned due to constitutional violations). Not even rapists and murderers get that high of a bail and I did none of those things. The only offense I was guilty of was saving a family member from neglect and filing molestation charges against them (I guess it really pissed them off).

As I said at the beginning there I nothing “average” about my story and not digress, but I am probably the only person earth who had got to torture, torment, humiliate, antagonize, shame, abuse, slap, beat the shit out of one of the world’s most nefarious 9/11 terrorists! I was working as a dominatrix when he came to see me and I can guarantee what I did to him was way more painful than dying in a plane crash. (By the way, if you are interested, ask me about the late David Carradine sometime).

It gets even better…one of the many unusual things abut me is that I look more like a “movie star” than a convicted felon who at one time In fact, in the country we are now living in, most people assume that I am some famous actress from America just taking a break from all the fame. They love to take pictures of me and ask for my autograph; and I if they new the real truth of why I was in their country I would probably really become a hero. As I am sure you know people can’t get enough of the dark side of someone’s past.

It has been almost six years since we left America on March 17th, 2004 (Saint Patrick’s Day) and never set looked back. Some people may find me a coward for running and that I should have stayed and taken the consequences and gone to jail; lose my children who would have been given to my perverted ex-mother in law (who was sexually abusing them) and my husband (who is a Vietnam veteran) goes insane and kills everyone involved. “Staying was not an option and I wasn’t running from my responsibilities, I was running to them! We have finally found some peace and happiness and it is close as one can ever get a chance to have a “do over” in life.

My memoir is called Momentary Lapses of Insanity; it pretty much starts at the beginning of my wretched life with a father who bailed on me before I was born. When I met him for the first time (at age 18) he confessed that he knew I was being abused. The asshole he knew and just left me there? I didn’t know whether to kick him in the nuts or cut them off; I finally just mumbled “thanks a lot asshole” and never saw him again.

My mother’s insanity got worse as time went on, especially after she remarried and gave birth to my brother. I was about four when my mother forced me to accuse her new husband of sexual abuse (he never touched me) she coached what to say the whole way through. She became so wrapped up in her lies that she started believing them and stabbed my step-father in the back (somehow she got away with it). I felt so guilty and still do; but life got its revenge on me; the court appointed psychiatrist who was supposed to help me cope turned out to be a pedophile who loved little girls,

After the divorce to husband number two, my mother’s methods of abuse became more bizarre (she made Dr. Mangele look like a saint) she would do things like hit my brothers penis with a belt; beat my vagina until it was raw and bleeding, put hot sauce in our eyes and as I got older; she forced me to douche with bleach just in case a fugitive sperm found its way inside me,.

By the time I am age 8 or so, she disappears for a couple of weeks and marries the “quintessential devil’’ himself. Not only did I have to endure my mother’s cruel insanity; I was a being raped and sexually molested by new my step father; and later by his friend’s and even law enforcement officials.

At age eleven I decided that they had to die; it was the only way to stop them. I stood at the foot of the bed when my mother and step father slept, I aimed my mother’s .22 gun at him first and squeezed the trigger nothing happened, I kept pulling the trigger but no bullets came out. They should have died that night, but something saved them, or maybe it was saving me from becoming a murderer.

Life continued to get weirder as I finally got away from my family. At the age of 18 I was already stealing cars, running guns and drugs across the border of Mexico; working for loan sharks; you name it I did it (except murder and prostitution). At some point I was sure I would be caught and I planned to go out in a blaze of glory; “suicide by cop”. It seems that DEA agents were just too stupid or could never imagine a girl that looks like me could ever be capable of those kinds of crimes.

I kept fucking up, and in classic “text book” fashion I married into a sick and twisted family. But this time it was worth the pain because I got two children out of it that I worship and love; they gave me purpose to stop my self destructive life and become human again. I now had something that I had to protect with my life. A messy divorce followed, attempts on my life and court battles continued to try throw its worst at me, but I kept fighting.

Finally I get a break and marry a man who is a war hero and loves me and my children and will do anything to protect us. It looked like the worst was over, but life was done with me yet, which brings us back to me and my family living incognito in a country far, far away.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and I would love could go on into detail of the horrific torture, the hilarious moments (like stealing a politicians car), the unusual jobs (can you believe that I was actually a certified paramedic?), getting thrown out of towns and asking the police to bring me some toilet paper as I urinated in someone bushes, the list goes on and on.

Thank you and "may the force be with you"

D. Elysee “Elle” Johnson (part pseudonym)
elysee.johnson@gmail.com

*By the way, I do have a “free get out of jail card in my back pocket” but it involves giving up my American citizenship and I am trying to keep from doing that, for now.