Of all the author stories I’ve encountered in five years, this is probably the most amazing of all. Mary Beth O’Connor is a retired federal administrative law judge who survived a childhood rife with physical, sexual and emotional abuse followed by 20 years of hard core alcohol and drug addiction. Faced with never-ending feelings of abandonment, danger and marginalization, she persevered through high school and college, made it into law school, dropped out, then rejoined finally tackling her addiction in her 30’s to become a judge. She writes about it in stark terms in her memoir  ...