Memoir
Randa Jo Downs’ childhood in Texas was a dichotomy of innocence and darkness. A haunting family secret lurked among her love for dancing, the escape of her vibrant imagination, and summer days spent swimming in rivers. While father-daughter incest is not an uncommon crime, it is one veiled in secrecy and shame.
Comfort, Texas is a poignant memoir that explores why Downs’ father hurt his family beyond measure and why her mother did not protect her. It is a testament to the resilience of one spirit and the transformative power of using storytelling to understand and reclaim her childhood. Downs emerges not only as a survivor, but as a fierce lesbian feminist, theater artist, and child welfare advocate.
Downs dissects the crime of incest with a sharp blade. She examines a compelling body of work on the history of father-daughter incest in America and discovers a shocking betrayal of women and children going back generations. The psychoanalytic and legal professions depicted girls and women as unreliable narrators of their pain and trauma and only out to make trouble for their abusers. Downs joins the voices of second-wave feminism in challenging those cruel beliefs.
Her stories and essays will deeply resonate with other survivors and the people who care about them.
Randa Jo Downs is a researcher, writer, and theater artist with a focus on child abuse prevention. Her acclaimed one-woman play, In My Father’s Bed toured nationally and was published by Rain City Projects. She is a former member of the acting company At the Foot of the Mountain in Minneapolis and co-creator of Toklas, MN., a lesbian soap opera. An alumna of Hedgebrook, she is a recipient of grants from King County Arts Commission, the Boeing Foundation, and the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. She lives in Minneapolis with her wife, artist Chris Cinque.