Underwater Daughter

• “Written in rich, insightful prose, Underwater Daughter showcases hard-won self-knowledge and wisdom, while inviting readers to feel Deignan’s wounds and joys. Though bitingly descriptive of the traumas that Deignan endured, the story also movingly recounts Deignan’s rebirth…”

— Publisher’s Weekly BookLife - Editor’s Pick

“From these pieces emerge a partial sense of how Deignan learned to reconfigure the impact of her physical and psychic pains to achieve healing and forgiveness. Underwater Daughter is a poetic memoir about transformation and transcendence after abuse.”

– Foreword Clarion

“Underwater Daughter is pure magic. From her first line to her last, Antonia Deignan takes us on a wild ride, from her perilous childhood through many hardships to the resilient woman she became. Her voice is utterly inventive. Written with stunning originality and passion, this is a book readers will long remember.”

—Linda Schreyer, television/screenwriter and coauthor of Tears and Tequila

“Underwater Daughter is a poem, an anthem, a polished crystal, and one of the most profound books I've ever read. Antonia Deignan writes of family, dysfunction, and forgiveness beyond our human experience, revealing the exquisite beauty of life in all its pain and joy. Her voice is like the wind: fierce, restorative, and new.”

—Debra Landwehr Engle, author of The Only Little Prayer You Need

“Like the author’s dancing, this memoir seems to have some nameless tune in its core. Deignan gently paints a picture of even the most difficult moments in her life. She has decided to live her life lovingly, and by doing so gives us all a path forward.”

—Harriet Ross, co-founder of Dance for Life and retired general manager of the Joffrey Ballet

“In Underwater Daughter, the author bravely faces her humanity and dives into excavating her inner and outer life. Written with a clever hand, the read is intimate, raw, and shares unfiltered vivid memories of abuse, survival, love, trauma, dance, relationships, healing, evolution, and so much more. This memoir is a meaty, meaningful journey that kept me captivated and wanting more.”

—Sherry Zunker, Founder & Creator of BeMoved Dance

“Antonia Deignan’s Underwater Daughter is a spellbinding memoir. At once a lyrical portrait of a young woman’s coming of age and of a mother’s coming into herself, it is a beautiful, gripping memoir of love and art, and of overcoming damage through both. Underwater Daughter is an odyssey of coming home to oneself by laying claim to one’s body and desires—as a dancer, lover, mother, teacher. Wise, moving, instructive, gorgeous.”

—E. J. Levy, author of The Cape Doctor

“It’s poetic, descriptive, and segues into scene after scene like a dance. Antonia, I felt you as a four- and five-year-old. I pained for you and angered for you at the attention and the inattention you received from you r parents, respectively. I am so in awe of how you are vulnerable, raw, and soothing with your writing. This took my breath away. I felt this.”

—Stephanie Arnold, producer, speaker, and author of 37 Seconds

“Underwater Daughter starts with disjointed pieces of prose and poetry violently breaking across the page like smashed glass. As you compulsively turn its pages, the writing gradually becomes more lyrical and coherent, the jagged shards subtly glued together to produce a beautiful and colorful mosaic out of all the broken bits. It is a writing style that perfectly suits its underlying subject. This is the story of an abused child, running from her terrors as an adult, finally made whole through self-reflection and a searing honesty. A brave, moving, and compelling work.”

—Richard C. Morais, author of The Hundred-Foot Journey

“Antonia Deignan makes ‘raw’ feel very accessible. Her unflinching detail mocks the painful absurdity of a world where brutal adults leave a child holding self-blame in tiny hands. Prepare your senses to move fluidly through her stunning observations in which she masterfully captures the burden of trauma at a cellular level. Never mind a life of clenched fists and secrets kept, this selfless writer opens her soul so that others may bathe in the bravery of her words. And dance. And heal.”

—Pamela Weiss, founder of Hold This While IP Productions, writer, and producer