Exploring the impact of her father's mental illness and incarceration, Jiordan Castle's debut poetry chapbook blends candor, compassion, and humor. Through vivid imagery, she navigates the complexities of family and personal struggle, offering a journey from darkness to self-discovery. The work captures the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring hope that lies within, inviting readers to reflect on their own experiences and emotions.
Moving and evocative, Disappearing Act is a YA memoir-in-verse following author Jiordan Castle's coming of age as her family reckons with the aftershocks of her father's imprisonment. It was the summer before high school, the beginning of everything. But also an end. Jiordan’s family was never quite like everyone else’s, with her father’s mood swings, her mother’s attempts at normalcy, and her two older sisters with a different last name. But on the surface, they fit in. Until the day the FBI came knocking on the door. After that, her father’s mood plunged to a dangerous new low. After that, there was an investigation into his business and a sentencing in court. Soon Jiordan’s father would have to leave home, and her family would change forever. Reckoning with the aftershocks of her father’s incarceration, Jiordan had to navigate friends who couldn't quite understand what she was going through, along with the highs and lows of first love. Under it all was the question: If Jiordan’s father was gone, why did she feel like the one who was disappearing? Recounting her own experiences as a teenager, poet Jiordan Castle has created a searing and evocative young adult true-story-in-verse about the challenge to be free when a parent is behind bars.