"I heard drawers and closet doors open and close as the policemen
continued their search in the bedrooms. My files were stacked in
the office. Those papers could connect my name and my face. My
picture albums were piled on the floor. If the officers opened
them, they'd see that I was the mother they were looking for. I
thought of everything they might find to bring my charade crashing
down around me." With the intensity of a mystery novel and the
heart of a true life drama, this heartbreaking memoir details
Murphy's years spent on the run with her young son. Disappearing
Act is a gripping story that reveals the saga of an ordinary
woman's struggle against the influence of her ex-husband's powerful
mother, famed author Maya Angelou. With extraordinary honesty,
Murphy recounts her marriage to Angelou's charismatic son, Guy
Johnson. Guy becomes violent, but not before the author gives birth
to their son Colin. To protect Colin, Sharon pursues a divorce. But
money, power, and influence put Colin in Guy's custody, despite his
violent behavior. Realizing that neither she nor her son would ever
live in peace and safety, Murphy makes the controversial decision
to kidnap her own son. Disappearing Act chronicles the harrowing
years Murphy and Colin spent on the run, as Guy and Angelou attempt
to track them down. Eventually Sharon is caught and Colin is
returned to his abusive father. Her subsequent incarceration and
release are recounted in painful detail. The author has found an
astonishing emotional truth about these events that both scarred
and defined her family. As the years pass, Murphy comes to
recognize and identify the hopes, fantasies, weaknesses, and family
patterns that led to the decisions she made. The issues that she
brought to her marriage, and to her relationship with her son begin
to crystallize and provide a kind of platform from which to move on
with her life. Entangled in a situation she did not understand,
Murphy reflects in Disappearing Act on the choices she made that
turned out to have consequences beyond her imagination. An
intensely personal story, this memoir ultimately describes a
universal journey of love, acceptance, and redemption. Praise for
Disappearing Act A Mother's Journey to the Underground "Sharon
Murphy has written a gripping, all-too-real memoir about her
custody battle and her flight "underground." Murphy is both bold
and humble as she confronts an abusive husband who is also an
abusive father and his formidable mother, the writer Maya Angelou.
Her scenes with both Angelou and with the writer's son ring true.
They are chilling, informative, dramatic. Brilliantly, Murphy
managed to protect her child for five years. When she is found,
Angelou herself came to collect her grandson, and returned him to
his father. "This is a writer's book. It is also a mother's book.
Murphy had strong sisters who helped her and a network of
supportive women, including feminists and lesbian feminists. Murphy
was also turned in by a woman. As the author of, Mothers on Trial.
The Battle for Children and Custody (1986, 2011) and Woman's
Inhumanity to Woman, (2002, 2009) I can assure you that Murphy
exaggerates nothing." Brava, Sharon Phyllis Chesler Ph.D is an
Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City
University of New York. She is a best- selling author, a legendary
feminist leader, a psychotherapist and an expert courtroom witness.
"Disappearing Act is a story of a woman's fierce bravery and
tenacity, and her refusal to be destroyed in the face of
experiences that might so easily have crushed her. I love the pluck
and humor and above all the big heart of this woman, and her
willingness to reveal not only her moments of rare courage but just
as much so her failings, as she fights not only for her son but for
her own survival against extraordinary obstacles." Joyce Maynard
Joyce Maynard is the author of fourteen books, including Labor Day
now a major motion picture.
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