Content Warning
This memoir, Bleach on Colored Clothes, deals with adult themes, which includes sexual assault/rape, survival sex work, strong language, alcoholism, sexual violence, domestic violence and child abuse. It is the raw and unfiltered story of the author's life.
-
Bleach on Colored Clothes is the life story of first-time author, Joretta King. A young girl raised in a very small South Carolina town, initially her life was idyllic. Her family was poor, but Joretta didn't know it. Her parents did everything they could to provide a loving and stable home. She spent her time playing with her siblings and sitting under the weeping willow tree in front of her house reading and writing stories.
Circumstances changed, requiring her parents to move to the next biggest town, which gave them access to better-paying jobs. When the bars began calling her parents, it wasn't long before loving and stable were replaced by alcoholism and dysfunction.
Soon dysfunction gave way to sometimes going without eating anything more than potato chips and soda and some days going without food. Arguments between her parents went from verbal to physical with Joretta and her siblings witnessing too many instances of her father beating her mother, sometimes to a pulp.
Milestones in Joretta's adolescence are ones no child should have to experience. Joretta was introduced to sex at 13 when one of her parents' "friends" raped her, which would be the first of dozens of rapes. At some point, Joretta realized that "survival sex" was the only way she would ... survive.
By the time Joretta was finally ready to have a relationship with a man and raise her children, she couldn't point to a single functional relationship to model, so she would end up repeating the same mistakes her parents made.
But this isn't a story just about a horrific childhood of a woman whose past was filled with unspeakable horrors and a future that would invariably be bleak. Instead, it's a story of triumph as Joretta uses some unconventional methods to stare down her demons, overcome and eventually excel.
As you will see from reading this book, Bleach on Colored Clothes becomes a double entendre to describe first her chaotic life, but eventually to describe a road less traveled and sheer determination and the strength to rival Hercules.
