The Snipers We Couldn’t See: A Memoir of Growing Up with My Mother’s Schizophrenia

THE SNIPERS WE COULDN’T SEE is Karen Comba’s memoir of rare power, a harrowing and intimate portrait of the far-reaching, generational effects of severe mental illness. Told with determination and searing honesty, this book recounts the shattering details of growing up as the prime target of her schizophrenic mother’s mental and physical abuse.

Karen’s story is sure to resonate with anyone who was the quiet child who quietly retreated in school–and who felt shame and anxiety as relatives, friends, and neighbors ran as far away as possible from her mother and the situation. Much like Jeanette Walls recounted about herself in The Glass Castle, Karen spent much of her adulthood hoping to bury her own history in the hope that nobody–especially herself–would find it.

Now in her sixties, Karen shares her story as a means to create a more frank dialogue to help heal and inform others. THE SNIPERS WE COULDN’T SEE is a story of survival that is as chilling as it is redemptive.