Destroy This House

A Memoir

De: Amanda Uhle

Narrado por: Rebekkah Ross

For fans of The Glass Castle and The Liars’ Club, a tender, heartbreaking, and hilarious memoir chronicling the challenges of growing up with a desperately scheming father, a mother plagued by an acute hoarding disorder, and parenting parents while seeking independence.

The Long family’s love was fierce, their lifestyle bizarre, and their deceptions countless. Once her parents were gone, Amanda Uhle realized she was closer to them than anyone else, yet she found herself utterly confounded by the lives they had led.

Amanda’s striving fashion designer mother and her charismatic wheeler-dealer father wove a complex life together that spanned ten different homes across five states over forty perplexing years. Throughout her childhood, as her mother’s hoarding disorder flourished and her father’s schemes crumbled, contradictions abounded. They bartered for dental surgery and drove their massive Lincoln Town Car to the food bank. When financial ruin struck, they abandoned their repossessed mansion for humble parish housing, and Amanda’s father became a preacher. They swung between being filthy rich and dirt poor, devious and virtuous, lonely and loved, fake and real.

In Destroy This House, Amanda sets out to document her parents’ unbelievable exploits and her own hard-won escape into independence. With humor and tenderness, Uhle has crafted a heartfelt and utterly unique memoir, capturing the raucousness, pain, joy, and ultimately, the boundless love that exists between all parents and children.

©2025 Amanda Uhle (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio

Interesting read

Fantastic description. Feels like Uhle wrote it with "show don't tell" in mind. Thankfully. Had it been written with a lot of telling or reflection, I don't think I could have listened to it without wanting to throw my phone across the room. It was pretty hard not to hate her mother and father, though I think because she had a better relationship with her father, even though he's as bat sh*t crazy as her mom, he comes off a little better. Wish there had been more about her brother.

Maybe a little long and repetitive. I was sick in bed when I was listening and frequently dozed off for a bit and didn't "rewind." I don't feel like I missed anything, didn't feel lost. It was like, "different year, different house, same old crazy."