Character Witness: A Memoir

When Jason Brown’s mother is arrested for stealing ＄38,000, he agrees to serve as a character witness for her, hoping to keep her out of prison.

Thus begins Character Witness, a memoir, a chronicle of a mother’s struggle with mental illness, addiction, and poverty, and an inquiry into whether we can escape the legacy of the past. Brown realizes that his troubles as a young man mirrored his mother’s, and as he chronicles how sexual abuse can pass down through generations--from father to daughter, and later from mother to son--he begins to look for answers about whether people can change.

Brown and his mother share a difficult history, but they also share a common sense of humor and a sense of the absurd. More than simply a recovery narrative, Character Witness centers the necessity of staying with loved ones even in their worst moments.

Jason Brown is a professor and director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Oregon. He has published four books of short stories: A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed, Driving the Heart and Other Stories, and Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work (an NPR summer reading pick), and Outermark. His stories have won several awards, including special mention in Best American Short Stories, and several have been performed as part of NPR’s Selected Shorts.