Come Back: Mother Daughter Memoir
A Teen’s Descent into Hell, Drug Addiction and Back
An honest and moving look at a teenage girl's fall into the wrong crowd and the moving transformation both mother and daughter experience in the end.
Mia Fontaine is a parent’s worst nightmare. A formerly straight-A student at the Hopkins Academy, a conservative prep school in Los Angeles, she suddenly decides to run away from the loving home she shares with her mother Claire and step dad Paul with her new friend Talia.
They immediately panic, not only because Mia has been sick with a fever, but because she has never done anything so impulsive and purposely rebellious. She leaves a note on her desk, telling her parents not to worry, that she needs to experience “real life.” Claire is wild with worry and anger, and they immediately search the streets for her.
Found, But Still Lost
Mia is found four days later in Venice, CA, high on drugs and disoriented. She is taken to the psych ward for troubled teens at the hospital, but she doesn’t receive the treatment she needs. Mia is fighting with emotions that are suddenly bubbling back up to the surface after years of avoidance. Her father, Claire’s ex-husband Nick, abused her as a child and left emotional scars that Mia soon replaces with physical ones, by cutting herself, abusing drugs and getting in over her head with a group of teens and adults in the dangerous and seedy underbelly of the city.
Parallel Stories
Both mother and daughter tell their parallel stories in first person accounts through the book. Claire’s is any parent’s worst nightmare, chronicling the day she felt she lost her daughter both emotionally and physically, and the work she did to regain her trust.
Mia’s story consists of a painful set of trials and triumphs, in which she runs away, takes drugs, and lies to both her parents and herself. She is ultimately sent by her parents to a difficult but loving boot camp of sorts in the Czech Republic. The extreme and often controversial behavior modification school where she lives for nearly two years helps her to overcome her depression, anger and addiction to be reborn as a strong and courageous young woman.
Come Back is an unforgettable and powerful story of love and transformation. It is a must read for mothers and daughters around the world.
About the Authors
Claire Fontaine
Claire Fontaine is an author and screenwriter, and has worked with a number of award winning producers and directors. She writes and leads writing workshops.
Mia Fontaine
Mia Fontaine recently graduated from a prestigious university. She has worked with the Special Olympics, the Smithsonian Institute and the National Geographic Society. She currently works in publishing.
The Fontaine women were awarded the Dr. Richard Carmona 2007 Doorway of Hope Award for their work in inspiring children and teens to leave the streets.
Fontaine, Claire and Fontaine, Mia
Come Back
New York, Harper Perennial, February 20, 2007
