Facing Inward: A Memoir of Celebrity, Sexuality and Chronic Disease

by Melissa Carter

Overview

Facing Inward is a memoir that weaves together stories of resilience, love, and self-discovery. At the heart of it is a candid reflection on a life shaped by chronic illness, Southern family dynamics, and an unshakable sense of feeling different.

Moving through pivotal phases of her life-childhood, a life-saving kidney transplant, and the Covid-19 pandemic-Melissa opens a window into her experiences as a lesbian, media personality, and someone who had to constantly reckon with a body that never quite cooperated. Each chapter offers glimpses into the complexities of her identity, from personal relationships to her rise in the media world, peppered with celebrity encounters and moments of vulnerability.

This memoir is for anyone who's ever felt out of place in their own body or wondered how to find joy amid struggle. With wit and honesty, it tells the story a woman who refuses to let her differences define her, embracing them instead as part of the richness of her unique journey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798989407804
Publisher:	Whanging Dude Publishing
Publication date:	05/26/2025
Pages:	290
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

As a member of morning radio shows for 20 years, Melissa Carter could be heard on 99X, Q100 and B98.5 in Atlanta. She also served as Co-Host on Westwood One's "Radio with a Twist." Melissa was unexpectedly diagnosed with kidney disease at 26 and was on dialysis by 31, having no known family history of that condition. As a media personality she had the ability to share her experience with her audience, encouraging them to become organ donors in the process.

Editorial Reviews

2025-01-10
A radio personality looks back on her storied career and discusses her experience of suffering from chronic illness in this memoir.

Sometimes a celebrity memoir is all about the glitz and the glam, the hobnobbing with the who’s who of the media industry; Carter’s new memoir delivers on this front. She dishes on her run-ins with RuPaul, David Byrne, and a juicy fake kiss with pop star Pink among other celebrity encounters over the course of her career in television media and, especially, radio. These stories add spice to a memoir that is, ultimately, about growing up as a lesbian in the American South while suffering from chronic illness. Carter pieces together the events of her life chronologically, from a birth scene originally written in a screenplay format (a man, her father, is asked to make a “Sophie’s Choice” between saving his wife or his daughter: “M-my wife, of course”) to the near-present in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. As a child, the author suffered from mysterious gastrointestinal issues eventually diagnosed as “spastic colon” (what might now be diagnosed as IBS). As the narrative progresses and she grows older, the focus shifts to the challenges of balancing her kidney failure and dialysis with the work of talk radio. The book is also an account of coming out of the closet and navigating romantic relationships on top of all of the author’s health complications. Carter’s prose throughout is clear and well-balanced between moments of levity and sincerity. (A scene in which the author comes out to her father underneath the glow of a Wendy’s sign is particularly poignant.) While Carter’s memoir sometimes feels uneven, as the author doesn’t always manage the smoothest tonal shifts between her health episodes and her professional development, the work is valuable as a piece of well-wrought introspection and as a look at queer life in the 1990s and 2000s.

A thoughtful chronicle of illness enlivened by celebrity anecdotes.

Kirkus Reviews