Published in 2025
304 pages
Originally from Northern California, where the events of her debut memoir Holding mostly take place, Karleigh Frisbie Brogan’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and more. She is a 2024 Oregon Literary Fellow and a 2022 Rona Jaffe Scholar. She holds an MFA from Portland State University. She is also a grocer.
What is this book about?
A stunning debut memoir about addiction, self-discovery, and the relationships between mothers and daughters, from an exciting new literary talent
Brogan “[spins] the world’s harshest truths into golden, beautiful sentences” reminiscent of the powerful writing in Wild and In the Dream House (Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman)
Featuring electric, immersive prose and universal insights about human relationships—especially between adult daughters and mothers—this unflinching and deeply moving excavation of her own history and addiction recovery is equally revealing about the American experience in our time.
At age 20, Karleigh Brogan and her boyfriend, Dale, moved into his parents’ home. The young couple hid their heroin addiction and promised they would only be there temporarily. What started as a two-week stopgap became two years of habitation. Karleigh and Dale’s mother, Glorianne, developed a complex relationship that was both toxic and tender. Glorianne became a stand-in for Karleigh’s mother, whose affection and trust Karleigh had always longed for. Simultaneously, Glorianne, an adoptee, searched for the birth mother she never knew.
In Holding, Karleigh Brogan brings the reader into her life before, during, and after her time with Dale and his parents, following the road that led from her endless lies to her family and herself, along the long, crooked, path to breaking the chains of her addiction so she could dream again of achieving the life—and the relationship with her own mother—she longed for.
