Justine Hope Blau

credit: Barbara Ehlers


“Time to read a real book. You choose Justine Blau's new memoir of her tumultuous childhood and difficult mother, Scattered….You are transfixed. It is lovely.”
-- Nicole Cliffe, TheHairpin.com



"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about "Scattered" is its tone. The wildest, funniest, most pathetic capers are told with a disarming matter-of-factness, as if crashing Bar Mitzvahs for your next meal is the sort of thing everyone does all the time. And in the context of Justine's childhood, simple creature comforts like getting three squares a day or sleeping in the same bed for more than a month seem almost surreal. The author remembers such moments with the relish of a food critic and a seasoned travel writer."
-- Ron Kopp, filmmaker and teacher, NY Film Academy & CCNY

Selected Works

Memoir
Scattered is Justine Blau’s account of growing up chronically homeless in ’60s era Manhattan with her delusional mother and her two older brothers. She finds unlikely salvation through relationships she builds in the tumult of a Westchester group home for children.