BREATHING THE NIGHT OUT
A story of intergenerational sexual violence and healing
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
— Maya Angelou
“I wasn’t writing a book. I was writing a suicide letter to my daughter, trying to explain why I took my own life.”
What began as a goodbye became a fight to survive.
Breathing the Night Out is a raw, unflinching memoir that traces 95 years of incest, murder, addiction, homelessness, and incarceration through one family and finds, against the odds, room for love, justice, and healing.
Writing this book came at a cost; emotional, financial, and spiritual. When those costs are met, part of the proceeds will go to The Gatehouse, a Toronto-based charity dedicated solely to supporting survivors of childhood sexual violence. The Gatehouse believed in me when I no longer believed in myself. They helped me rise, and they put me back in the fight.
About The Book
Ghrian Shine’s memoir, Breathing the Night Out, opens in a small Canadian town and unravels 95 years of incest hidden inside one family. It crosses the darkest landscapes — childhood sexual violence, murder, addiction, loss, incarceration, and homelessness — and still finds room for tenderness, rage, and, ultimately, healing. This is not only Ghrian’s story. It is the story of generations: survival passed from one scarred hand to the next.