Claudia Chotzen’s Memoir Gives Voice to Her Troubled Childhood

The following article discusses the sexual abuse of a child.

When asked why she wanted to write a book about her life, author Claudia Chotzen’s answer was simple: She wanted to tell her story.

“All my life, I felt like my voice was taken away from me,” she said. Finally, she was taking it back.

In her memoir The Dark Room: A Memoir of Triumph, Chotzen does just that. Chotzen, who lives in Santa Barbara, will visit Chaucer’s Books on August 7 at 6 p.m. for an in-store book talk and signing of her memoir.

Her story begins with her childhood growing up in Leschi, a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. To the outside world, her family was the epitome of domestic bliss. Seven siblings, doting parents, and a life filled with adventure painted a picture of perfection.

“Everybody called us the perfect family,” she said. Yet, behind closed doors, a far different reality unfolded. Many nights, while Chotzen was sleeping, she said that her mother came into her room and molested her. “I couldn’t move, I froze, and my body became hers,” she writes about one of the encounters. Chotzen also details various instances with her father, who hit her and her siblings on multiple occasions. She also details countless times when her parents’ carelessness put her and her siblings in all sorts of danger. They were anything but the perfect family, she admits.

She bought into the carefully constructed illusion her parents presented to the world. Her dad was a master of this, frequently proclaiming their mother the world’s greatest and their family the perfect unit. This pervasive narrative, she later realized, was akin to cult-like indoctrination.

I was fortunate enough to get a copy of The Dark Room. Before diving in, I noticed the cover: Chotzen, at age 10, photographed by her mother. Chotzen’s expression is solemn, lost even. The story drew me in. I stayed up late reading, analyzing the many anecdotes from her childhood.

I met Chotzen on a sunny afternoon at Mesa Café the next day. She wore a green-and-white striped shirt that matched her emerald earrings and ring. To say she’s a joyful person is an understatement. Her smile is infectious, and she radiates positivity so fiercely that it’s hard to imagine that the person sitting in front of me is the same person who graces the cover of her book. But I realize that this juxtaposition is only a testament to her healing.

Chotzen affirms this thought and informs me that her book is not “just a story of what happened. It’s a story of transformation” — a story of how, despite the unlucky cards she was dealt, she somehow came out on top. This is why she refers to her book as “a memoir of triumph.”

For most of her life, she says, she avoided confronting the abuse. She even maintained a relationship with her mother — for probably far too long, she admitted. It wasn’t until she had her son Zach that she decided she had to acknowledge what happened to her as a child.

“Age 34 was when I woke up,” she recalled. “I still can’t even believe to this day it took that long.” 

She moved away from Hawai’i, where her parents also lived, and started going to therapists who helped her realize that what had happened to her was indeed not normal. While living in Ashland, Oregon, in 1997, she put pen to paper. Yet, confronting the painful memories was often unbearable. She experienced depression, which deepened when her husband’s job brought her back to Washington, where she grew up. She wanted sun and warmth, and in 2001, they moved to Santa Barbara. 

After therapy, confronting her parents, and many discussions with her siblings, she decided to put her words to paper. Initially, she sought the help of a ghostwriter, anticipating that she couldn’t do it herself. After the ghostwriter didn’t work out, she realized that she had to be the one to write it. A friend offered to type for her while she recited her story. They did this twice a week for nine months until Chotzen had a draft.

A slew of publishers were interested in her story, but a common thread emerged: Many of them didn’t think that a story about a mother molesting her daughter would sell, and many were wary of publishing such a book. This response only affirmed to Chotzen why she needed to get her story out there in the first place — why she wouldn’t let people convince her that it was too “taboo” of a subject because that taboo subject was her life. Her childhood.

“If we don’t talk about it, [the kids] can’t get help,” she said. Chotzen is quick to point out that stories like hers may seem rare, but the reality is that they’re just not talked about enough.

“By speaking out, I have found a voice that was taken away from when I was a child,” she writes in the book’s Afterword. “This is a story of hope. My deepest wish is that it inspires clarity, insight, courage, and healing in others.”

Claudia Chotzen will discuss her book at Chaucer’s on Wednesday, August 7, at 6 p.m. For more information, see independent.com/events/chaucers-book-talk-local-author-claudia-chotzen.