A Conversation with Penny Lane, Author of Redeemed, A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood

Penny Lane is a writer, wife and mother with an insatiable passion for life and books. Her latest book is Redeemed, A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood, a rise-from-the-ashes hero’s story of overcoming abuse, trauma, and unbearable odds, of being waylaid by both family and religion’s promise of love, and harnessing the resilience to find the way home.

Redeemed offers a rare window into Eastern European immigrant culture and reads like a page-turning thriller. Especially relevant today, a time when marginalized people are increasingly finding a voice, this memoir will serve as an inspiration to women everywhere, encouraging them to overcome their obstacles and go after their dreams.

As Penny says, "Someone once said: 'An easy life is hardly worth writing about.' So true. I am not who you see. You may see a confident, exuberant woman, but underneath that tenacity, energy, and ambition is a young girl trying to make good as we say in New York.

I am not what you see. Although all my friends are all smart, accomplished, and successful like me, I feel the impostor in the group. Although I have come so far...I always fear failing more than I enjoy my successes.

Although I love life, in many ways I am still that girl but also so much more. I have become a wife, a mother, a professional, a student, a traveler, a volunteer, a congregant, a friend.

I was halfway through my life before I dared talking about my family secrets. I learned that many people shared similar lives. Hearing those stories helped me feel less strange, less 'other,' more 'normal' as if that were remotely possible. They helped me heal.​

I wrote the memoir of my escape, empowerment and triumph in hope that I might help others heal. If I can repair the world or provide an ounce of solace to someone else, then my experiences will have been worthwhile. I hope I can do that for you."

Kirkus Reviews calls her book, "Articulate, emotional prose brings readers into the author’s struggle to reclaim her inner strength and begin a new life (“I felt a power…a strength in my physical being. My soul shifted. I would never stand down to him, or anyone, ever again”).”

Penny describes in this episode how she grew up in fear and thereafter lived a life based in fear until she got help. She found a new way of living by obtaining therapy and feeling validated by others, including by those she met via Al Anon, where she was surrounded by other survivors. She earned her college degree in her 30s and refused to allow the painful life she lived in her childhood hold her back anymore.

Originally from Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, where she felt like a "closet Jew," since the religion spoke to her even as a child, Penny converted to Judaism in 2016 and found a spiritual home. She loves being outdoors-cycling, hiking, traveling, and connecting to and inspiring people. She has a BS in business and management from the University of Phoenix and an MA in industrial/organizational psychology from Golden Gate University. In her spare time, she helps underserved youth learn to read, apply to college, and find jobs once they graduate, and in food pantries and other non-profits near her home in Mill Valley, California.

Find out more about her work and follow her:

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