The Pale-Faced Lie: A True Story

OMG, wow, what can be said? This is an incredible book. I just came across it while casually surfing through Amazon. I bought the book and simply couldn’t put it down. It immediately sucked me in.The physical and emotional abuse this man went through is incredibly shocking! I don’t know how he survived it. But the book isn’t as depressing as it may sound, or I wouldn’t have continued reading it. It has its funny moments, and it does give hope to children who may have been abused.He goes into minute, fascinating details about his childhood that keep you captivated. I don’t know how he remembers it all. Just fascinating stories about life on the reservation, school, drunks, his many rebellious pranks, and packs of feral attacking dogs!One thing that bothers me is how he keeps running back to his crazy, sadistic father, continually, and choosing his dad over his poor mother. She is mentally ill, passive, and weak, but about one millionth as bad as his dad was. All she really wants is for her children to love her. He complains that she rehashes her old gripes her whole life, but my god, that is exactly what his DAD does his whole life, only much, much, much worse!!! She never beat him, forced him to abet crimes, threaten to kill him, or overpower him with gut-wrenching, unrelenting FEAR, either.He just seemed to really be pulled to his violent father no matter what his dad did, including humiliation, murder, dragging him into crimes, and threatening and damn near killing him. And yet he still kept going back, maintaining a relationship with his dad, but not so much his mother. I don’t understand. David Crow, can you shed more light on your thinking here? It would add great clarity that would help the reader understand your decisions more.Nevertheless, an awesome, gripping, and insightful book with hopeful messages. He finally escapes his tormented childhood and builds a good life for himself, and ultimately succeeds, thank goodness! I highly recommend this great, ultimately optimistic book!

This is my absolute favorite book of all time. The author is so bold and honest. Highly recommend. I would give this book 1,000,000,000,000 stars if I could.

The book is well written. It kept me engaged. Thankfully, there is some type of redemption at the end. The author has an interesting and respectable endpoint, so to speak. I don’t wish to give any details regarding his adult life, the reader should be free to discover them for his/her self.While the book is somewhat compelling, I found it to be an emotionally difficult read. It also struck me that with each advancement in his life, it was wash, rinse, dry, repeat. Over. And over. It’s a dark and unsparing look into certain aspects of the human psyche and soul (if we humans do in fact possess such a thing). The most important adults in his life fail him and his siblings unfailingly. Narcissism runs rampant through these “parent” figures. Certainly there is no end of mental illness. On occasion, an adult steps forward to provide some type of decency and compassion, but these people don’t stick around for long. Add to the narrative all the ways that he and, specifically, his brother act out in order to try and deal with the physical and mental abuse and you end up with a very depressing book. There were definitely some elements that I could relate to, but the viciousness and cruelty from the father and the stepmother were just horrific. The mother was her own special type of effed-upedness. These people were human in physical form only. The stepmother is so evil and wretched, it’s almost too difficult to believe that some artistic license hasn’t been taken in presenting her. Though I am sure that the author is telling the truth and is being as accurate as possible. When one remembers the atrocities of Communist Russia or the macabre, inhuman horror that is mankind that was displayed by those of the Third Reich, it becomes apparent that such evil and nastiness resides in all people. It is, after all, people who think up such horrors and people who carry them out.Having written that, the book also highlights that we can choose. At any point in time, we are choosing. We choose our responses. We choose our actions. We choose to be complicit or to resist. We choose wether we perpetuate and participate in the violence and depravity or we choose to stand up to it and break from it, showing courage, compassion, kindness and love. When choosing the latter course, surprising and inspiring results can unfold.It’s a dark read. I don’t believe in angels and demons, but I do believe they walk amongst us. We have seen them. They belong to this realm. They are us. A representation of the duality of mankind. We all bear the seeds of good and evil within us. Which seeds will we choose to water and nourish?

Wow! Its hard to find the right words but this book is both devastating and triumphant. So proud of the author and his siblings for the life they overcame and built for themselves. Such a great read

David Crow’s childhood was hard to read but I kept on coming back. Amazing how he has persevered. Such courage! Amazing story!

I just finished this book and loved it! The author wrote it well as it was a true story and I am sure there were times it would have been hard to relive.

A powerful story of resilience that surely can provide perspective and inspiration. Well worth the read. Thanks for sharing your story David.

Absolutely loved this book. Could not put it down. Didn't want it to end. An exceptional story that grips you from the start.

Amazingly emotional, gripping story of a true bully wouldn't settle for anything less than what he wanted and even tried to make his son part of his evil plans..

I still have tears in my eyes after reading this deeply moving story. It swings from light to dark, funny to serious in an instant. I highly recommend

This is a tale of a family whose four children overcome its challenges. Despite very difficult parenting due to troubled parents, the main character, a young man with learning difficulties, managed to overcome his home, environmental, learning and financial challenges to succeed as did his siblings. This tale is one of the triumph of the American spirit. It is an easy read.