02704cam a2200385 i 4500 336266650 TxAuBib 20180102120000.0 171128s2017||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 9780316466622 031646662X (OCoLC)1013189364 TxAuBib rda eng fre Julien, Maude, 1957- Derrière la grille English. The only girl in the world : a memoir / Maude Julien with Ursula Gauthier ; translated by Adriana Hunter. First North American edition. New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ©2017. 273 pages : illustration ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier The Only Girl in the World describes the author's harrowing upbringing by fanatic parents, who raised her in isolation through traumatic disciplinary exercises designed to "eliminate weakness" and recounts how she eventually escaped with the help of an outsider. "Maude Julien's parents were fanatics who believed it was their sacred duty to turn her into the ultimate survivor--raising her in isolation and subjecting her to endless drills designed to "eliminate weakness." Maude learned to hold an electric fence for minutes without flinching, and to sit perfectly still in a rat-infested cellar all night long (her mother sewed bells onto her clothes that would give her away if she moved). She endured a life without heat, hot water, adequate food, friendship, or any kind of affectionate treatment. But Maude's parents could not rule her inner life. Befriending the animals on her parents' lonely estate as well as the characters in the novels she read in secret, young Maude nurtured in herself the compassion and love that her parents forbade as weak. And when, after more than a decade, an outsider managed to penetrate her family's paranoid world, Maude seized her opportunity to break free. By turns horrifying and magical, [this book] is a story that will grip you from the first page and leave you spellbound by its chilling exploration of psychological control that ends with a glorious escape."--Jacket. 20180102. Julien, Maude, 1957- Abused children France Biography. Psychologically abused children France Biography. Adult child abuse victims' writings. Psychological torture. Gauthier, Ursula. Hunter, Adriana, translator.