Crazy Brave: A Memoir

One of the most consistent and pervasive themes in Crazy Brave is alcoholism and abuse by men against women. Harjo is surrounded by abusive, alcoholic men throughout her life, beginning with her father, who abuses her mother. While she adores her father, she often remembers him with a flask of liquor. Later, her alcoholic stepfather is much more abusive to her, her mother, and her siblings. He not only abuses them physically by beating them with his belt, but also abuses them psychologically by controlling their lives both in and out of the house. While her husband does not physically abuse her, he drinks heavily and neglects her. Finally, her poet boyfriend is violently alcoholic, striking her as well as getting in bar fights and putting her in dangerous situations.

Harjo structures the narrative to suggest that her attraction to such men is a consequence of her experience worshipping her father, despite his flaws. She often remembers her father and his destructive behavior when she writes of these men, and her friends explicitly tell her she is dating her father when she is with her poet boyfriend. Harjo does not explicitly state it, but the intense panic and fear she experiences at the end of the narrative is connected to this cycle of abusive men in her life.