It’s Not Too Late   

When she found herself spiraling into a terrifying version of her father, screaming herself hoarse at her son, Lisa-Jo Baker realized that to go forward—to refuse to repeat the sins of our fathers—we must first go back.

This is an unflinching look at a family that got it wrong and a real life example for all who feel worried they’re too off-course to make the necessary corrections.

Lisa-Jo’s story shows that it’s never too late to be free.

Born white in the heart of Zululand during the height of apartheid, Lisa-Jo Baker longed to write a new future for her children—a longing that set her on a journey to understand where she fit into a story of violence and faith, history and race.

Before marriage and motherhood, she came to the United States to study to become a human rights advocate. When she naively walked right into America’s own turbulent racial landscape, she experienced the kind of painful awakening that is both individual and universal, personal and social.

Even if Years Go By

Years would go by before she traced this American trauma back to her own South African past.

Lisa-Jo was a teenager when her mother died of cancer, leaving her with her father. Though they shared a language of faith and justice, she often feared him, unaware that his fierce temper had deep roots in a family’s and a nation’s pain.

Even if Old Wounds Reopen

Decades later, old wounds reopened when she found herself repeating the violent patterns of her childhood in her own parenting.

Only then did she begin the journey back to the beginning to find a way to break old cycles and write a new story for her family and the next generation.

Like her, you too can be free.

Lisa-Jo Baker is a bestselling author, lapsed lawyer, current acquisitions editor for HarperCollins, and the author of Never Unfriended, The Middle Matters and Surprised by Motherhood.

With a BA in English/prelaw from Gordon College and a JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School, Lisa-Jo has lived and worked on three continents in the human rights field and subsequently spent nearly a decade leading the online community of women called (in)courage as their editor in chief and community manager. She’s the co-host of the Out of the Ordinary podcast.

Originally from South Africa, Lisa-Jo now lives just outside Washington, D.C., where she met and fell in love with her husband in the summer of ’96. Their story together spans decades, languages, countries, books, three very opinionated children, and one dog.