One of the best-known Misery Lit lawsuits has ended with the author being vindicated. Constance Briscoe’s book Beyond Ugly recounted her abuse-filled childhood with horrifying stories of beatings for bedwetting, verbal abuse and other punishments at the hands of Constance’s mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell. Carmen sued for libel, but the jury ruled for the daughter.

The jury returned a unanimous verdict in favour of Briscoe and her publisher, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., after a day of deliberations.
The book has sold more than half a million copies since its publication two years ago, and Briscoe has written a sequel, “Beyond Ugly.”



Briscoe testified that her mother beat her repeatedly with a adhere for bed-wetting and called her a “dirty little whore.” The abuse drove her to drink bleach in a suicide attempt and she had plastic surgery in response to her mother’s taunts that she was ugly, Briscoe

said.
Briscoe, 51, is a lawyer and one of the first black women in Britain to be appointed a recorder or part-time judge.


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Briscoe testified that she did not owe it to her mother to be silent.
“I had a story to tell and that . . . is that I, someone from dirt poverty, from absolutely nowhere, with absolutely no assistance whatever, having faced adversity at every turn, could come through,” she testified.
“I wanted to say to whoever read the book . . . you can be whatever you want to be. You just have to believe in yourself.”

Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog