“Orenda Fink's captivating memoir cascades with life and loss. Part detailed description of a gnarled family tree, part rock n' roll tell-all, part exorcism of the many demons that her and us can recognize in ourselves but do not understand. I have been a longtime admirer of her art and have been fortunate enough to call her a friend for many years. Still I had not known much of what is contained in this book. We have all touched some kind of madness. We have all cast our own sorry, desperate type of spells. This book is a testament to those things which make us scared and brave and magically human all at once.”

— Conor Oberst

“A memoir of great generosity—to herself, to her mother, to all mothers, to her friends and fans, to everyone who reads it.  You don’t have to know Orenda or her music in order to recognize a version of your own life inside of her own.  Plus all the juicy music-scene gossip.  I couldn’t put it down.”


—Alexander Payne

Description goes here“’The past is never dead and not even past,’ the great Southern novelist William Faulkner wrote. In her evocative, elegant memoir, the great Southern songwriter and performer Orenda Fink is like a descendant of one of his characters transported to our time, surviving terrible circumstances and finally thriving.”


— Anne Kreamer, author of Going Gray

“Every paragraph of The Witch’s Daughter shimmers with a hauntingly precise perspective, and the spirit of the book is a delight, a wonder, even as it addresses turmoil, sadness, heartbreak. This is a riveting book about defiance. As Orenda seeks explanation for her mother's twisted magic and vindictive spells, she finds wisdom and serenity and music. The minute I finished the book, I wanted to start right over at the beginning.”


— Timothy Schaffert, author of The Perfume Thief, The Titanic Survivors Book Club