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Karen Keilt
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The Parrot's Perch: A Memoir Kindle Edition

by Karen Keilt (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 188 ratings
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The Parrot’s Perch opens in 2013, when Karen Keilt, age sixty, receives an invitation to testify at the Brazilian National Truth Commission at the UN in New York. The email sparks memories of her “previous life”—the one she has kept safely bottled up for more than thirty-seven years. Hopeful of helping to raise awareness about ongoing human rights violations in Brazil, she wants to testify, but she anguishes over reliving the horrific events of her youth.

In the pages that follow, Keilt tells the story of her life in Brazil—from her exclusive, upper-class lifestyle and dreams of Olympic medals to her turmoil-filled youth. Full of hints of a dark oligarchy in Brazil, corruption, crime, and military interference, The Parrot’s Perch is a searing, sometimes shocking true tale of suffering, struggle—and survival.

Karen Keilt lived through the darkest days of Brazil’s military dictatorship. In her courageous and compelling memoir, Keilt narrates an emotionally honest reckoning of her desire to find true happiness. Forbidden by her wealthy family to even mention her imprisonment, torture, and rape, Keilt is forced to make a change that will affect the rest of her life. Seen through her testimony to the Brazilian National Truth Commission at the UN, readers become witnesses to both her vulnerability and her quiet strength.
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  1. Print length
    289 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    She Writes Press
  5. Publication date
    16 April 2019
  6. File size
    3501 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Product description

Review

2022 Independent Press Awards Winner in Memoir
2020 CIBA Journey Book Awards Grand Prize Winner

"Keilt narrates an intense yet even-handed story of living under a dictatorship."
--Publisher's Weekly

"Karen Keilt has written a powerful and moving memoir about a subject that's still just coming out of the closet: growing up terrified of a parent--and of one's environment in general--and the lifelong consequences of that fear. As women all over the world are becoming more outspoken about the truth of their experience, the timing of this book could not be better."
--Stephen Singular, author of Talked to Death: The Life and Murder of Alan Berg

"The Parrot's Perch is a riveting and compelling read that draws the reader in from the very first page. Karen Keilt's memoir is a story of innocence lost--betrayal and brutality, acceptance, and ultimately forgiveness. Its power leaves you questioning the human capacity to hurt one another--and, as the author beautifully demonstrates, the human heart's greater capacity to stand courageously for truth, justice, and love.
--Paulette Bodeman, author of The BreakAway Girl: Secrets of a Tantric Yogi

About the Author

Born and raised in Brazil to a Brazilian father and an American mother, Karen Keilt had a childhood of luxury and privilege. She began riding horses at age five and competing at age nine. She attended University of Sao Paulo, Faculdade Objetivo. However, in 1979, she fled to the US, after being unlawfully held prisoner and tortured by Brazilian police for 45 days before being ransomed. Since coming to America, she has enjoyed an eclectic career, including serving as Riding Master at the YMCA, and the first-ever female general manager of a men's professional RHI League hockey franchise, the Florida Hammerheads. She always gravitated back to her love of writing--first as a newspaper columnist in South Carolina, and later writing four screenplays: The Parrot's Perch, Bethebotu, The Gnashing of Teeth, and Maracanazo. Keilt enjoys traveling, hiking, Anusara yoga, amateur photography, and horseback riding. She lives in Carefree, Arizona, with her husband, Jack, and their dog, Luna.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07FL11D5L
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ She Writes Press (16 April 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3501 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 289 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 188 ratings

About the author

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Karen Keilt

Karen Keilt

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Born and educated in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Karen moved to the US at the age of 27.

Karen has enjoyed an eclectic career including Riding Master and General Manager of a men's pro hockey franchise though she always gravitated back to her love of writing; first as a newspaper columnist in South Carolina, and later writing four screenplays including: "The Parrot's Perch", "Bethebotu", a children's fantasy about pink dolphins and mermaids, "The Gnashing of Teeth", an adaptation of the coming-of-age novel by James Raymond about the Korean War and "Maracanazo", a wonderful story about two young men from different worlds both dreaming of winning the World Cup. Karen enjoys traveling, hiking, Anusara Yoga, amateur photography, and horseback riding and lives in Arizona with her husband and their dog Luna. Karen's first book, The Parrot's Perch was written in 2010 and is a fictionalized account of events that occurred in Brazil in 1976.

On April 30, 2010, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled to uphold a 1979 law stating that crimes committed by members of the military regime were political acts and therefore covered by amnesty. That law remains in place today. The Court's ruling makes it clear that the Brazilian Amnesty Law violates Brazil's international obligations and that it represents an obstacle in the search for truth.

Amnesty International has condemned the Brazilian Supreme Court's blocking of this recent reinterpretation of the 1979 Amnesty Law that protects members of the former military government from being put on trial for extrajudicial killings, torture and rape.

"The ruling places a judicial stamp of approval on the pardons extended to those in the military government who committed crimes against humanity," said Tim Cahill, Amnesty International's Brazil researcher.

In April 2010, Mr. Cahill went on to say, "In a country that sees thousands of extra-judicial killings every year at the hands of security officials and where many more are tortured in police stations and prisons, this ruling clearly signals that in Brazil nobody is held responsible when the state kills and tortures its own citizens," said Tim Cahill.

In 2013 Karen gave her testimony to the Brazilian National Truth Commission at Brazil's permanent mission to the UN in New York City. That investigation resulted in new information about Karen's ordeal at the hands of Brazilian police. Following that investigation, in 2018 Karen wrote a memoir titled The Parrot's Perch - A Memoir of Torture and Corruption in Brazil. A parrot's perch is a device commonly used for torture in Brazil's jails and prisons.

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4.4 out of 5
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Martha Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting and Moving
Reviewed in the United States on 5 October 2023
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I read this book in less than a day, it is extremely well written and compelling - I wanted to know how the author survived and thrived. An amazing memoir about the beauty of the human spirit.
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Written Path
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book
Reviewed in India on 28 June 2019
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Everyone should read this. It's one of the best memoirs I've read in ages. Karen's privileged and wealthy lifestyle in Brazil and the US, is funded by her father's work as a CIA agent, and she suffers for it. She and her first husband Rick Sage get picked up by brutal cops and tortured and raped. And the nightmares that follow and the collapse of her social life and her marriage is all recounted vividly. Then she flees to the US and tries to pick up her life there.

She comes across as vulnerable and strong at the same time, and the fact that despite her wealthy past, she doesn't have any work experience to do anything else except work as a waitress seems like an ultimate comedown. Her parents seem more interested in keeping appearances than helping her find closure. Her mother advises her to forget about the torture and the father who never explained himself to her or took responsibility for what happened to her, calls her "soiled goods"!

Read this gripping book because it's well worth it. Actually would make a great movie starring Kate Winslet or Jennifer Lawrence.
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Dom Flint
5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling memoir of extraordinary courage and determination
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 June 2019
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A memoir of a gilded childhood in Brazil, that child becoming a young woman with aspirations of Olympic success. But there was always a darkness around the edges, a father with film-star looks, who was also mercurial, domineering and had a ferocious temper. And there were secrets. Secrets that may have led to the newly-wed author's arrest and imprisonment along with her husband. The torture and abuse the author and her husband were subjected to in prison was horrific, the worst a human being can do to another. Surviving that ordeal and its aftermath, both physically and psychologically, required unimaginable courage and strength.

In a country and society that didn't want to know after her release, that didn't want to pick at the scabs, the author had to endure an isolation that almost broke her. Putting herself back together through all the subsequent left-turns that life brings was a feat of extraordinary determination. A fascinating read from the start, it became increasingly compelling. I could not put it down.
One person found this helpful
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MarlenaMB
5.0 out of 5 stars Terribly sad and shocking, but also triumphant.
Reviewed in the United States on 16 June 2019
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The Parrot’s Perch is terribly sad and shocking, but also triumphant. A young woman and her husband are kidnapped by the savage police of Sao Paulo in 1976 just a month after their opulent wedding. They are raped and tortured for 45 days, until a huge ransom is paid. They are broken.
As the author tells us, this is something that has happened and can still happen to citizens of Brazil. Torture is still part of “policing.” Amnesty still exists for the brutal crimes by the former military government. Some of these techniques were taught to the army and police forces by the US, intent on eradicating communism in past decades. But Ms. Keilt has survived to tell us the story and it stands, sadly, for so many others. It's important as witness to this inhumanity and should be read widely.
Beyond the horror is the story of one woman who proves she is strong enough to survive, in spite of her family who tries to hide the tragedy and pain.
Ultimately, for me, the beauty of this book is in the voice of the narrator, her candor, and life force, her survival instinct. Her need to find joy and beauty in life again.
4 people found this helpful
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bestbatiker
4.0 out of 5 stars WORTH A READ
Reviewed in the United States on 22 June 2019
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I'm so glad I read the autobiographical version first. It was quite intriguing and well written. My heart ached for Karen.

The fictionalized one from a few years before is really quite bad. It did not seem to have had ANY editing or the chosen editor was sloppy and/or not well versed in the English language. Also a bad move to have the very same title for both books.
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