A poignant & unforgettable memoir of growing up orphaned. Francine was three years old when her father died, & by the time she was eleven, her mother was dead of Breast cancer. The irreversibility of what had happened crashed down on me, a nauseating wave of fear & a flood of tears followed. I didn't know who I was without my mother. What would fill the vast space left by the disappearance of this all-consuming relationship? How would I spend my time? What would I become? In answering these questions, Dr. Francine Cournos offers a beautifully written memoir of an injured child's inner life, & the moving-even exhilarating-story of the ways in which, after much struggle & with considerable help from others, that injured child living in a foster home grew to become a happy & successful adult. In City of One, an inspiring account of triumph over childhood adversity, a distinguished psychiatrist applies her expertise to her own true story of growing up orphaned.