Charlotte Seawell

Killing the Helicopter Woman Charlotte Seawell

"She knows that she controls the volume, she controls the pulsing in my veins, she controls the entire picture. Because she has to. Because someone else did not do their job and terrible things happened." She is the Helicopter Woman, and an emotional and physical assault established her mission: 24 vigilance in the life of the young woman detailed in this memoir. A childhood unfolds of loss, betrayal, and dysfunction at the hands of a military father, a well intentioned but emotionally removed immigrant mother, and a culture that views young women not as individuals to be celebrated but as objects to be used and discarded. But the intervention of a caring family in adulthood, a skilled therapist, and a Damascus road experience ultimately reveal a life rich with the possibility of hope, forgiveness and redemption.