Coming Clean: A Memoir

Kimberly Rae Miller is an immaculately put-together woman with a great career, a loving boyfriend, and a beautifully tidy apartment in Brooklyn. You would never guess that behind the closed doors of her family’s idyllic Long Island house hid teetering stacks of aging newspaper, broken computers, and boxes upon boxes of unused junk festering in every room—the product of her father’s painful and unending struggle with hoarding.

In this dazzling memoir, Miller brings to life her experience growing up in a rat-infested home, hiding her father’s shameful secret from friends for years, and the emotional burden that ultimately led to her suicide attempt. In beautiful prose, Miller sheds light on her complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, which has thrived in spite of the odds.

Coming Clean is a story about recognizing where you come from and understanding the relationships that define you. It is also a powerful story of recovery and redemption.

Wall Street Journal Bestseller

“Reality shows typically stay with hoarders only long enough to portray them as objects of pity or ridicule, but Miller's story, Coming Clean, offers a uniquely nuanced look at her intelligent, loving, but broken father and the enduring effect his affliction has had on her and her long-suffering mother." —Entertainment Weekly

"Harrowing. You root for [Kim], you root for [her parents], and at the end, you marvel at the capacity for human resilience." —People

“[Kimberly Rae Miller] recounts a childhood in which it was impossible to shower in her house or cook in the kitchen, of being bitten by fleas and listening to rats rustle at night. The hoarding surrounds everything... This searing tale of the damage caused by the disease reflects Miller’s deep consideration of her experience; a deeply affecting, remarkably thoughtful, and well-reasoned book, yet the horror is always there.  One can only admire Miller’s courage in coming clean.” —Booklist, Starred Review

"In Kimberly Rae Miller's memoir, Coming Clean, the writer doesn't minimize the destruction the disorder causes families. But she uses her own experience to paint a much more compassionate and nuanced portrait of the illness than is usually shown on reality TV shows like 'Hoarders.'" —The Associated Press

"As a child Miller realized her family wasn’t like other people’s families with tidy, presentable homes; far from it. Miller never invited anyone home and had to adopt a 'decoy' house to be dropped off at by friends... Stuff and unused purchases were piled so high that little room was left for the family even to eat or sleep or use the bathrooms." —Publishers Weekly

"[An] honest, sensitive memoir... at the heart of Coming Clean lie two equally mysterious phenomena, one as timely as the other is timeless. Hoarding, the first, has only recently entered the popular lexicon while the second, familial love, spans the ages." —Washington Independent Review of Books

"Miller renders her harrowing account without self-pity, and her empathy for her parents, as well as her refusal to treat the hoarding as a spectacle, allow space for redemption—both theirs and her own." —Elle

"Kimberly Rae Miller writes with insight about growing up the daughter of a hoarder in her family’s moldy, flea-infested home - and eventually overcoming her anger and shame." —Parade

"An engrossing, sympathetic exploration of living with hoarder parents."—Kirkus Reviews

"Astonishingly honest and heartfelt... Kimberly Rae Miller’s new memoir comes clean on how the reality of compulsive hoarding is very different from what we see on TV." —The Daily Beast, Women in the World

"Coming Clean is shocking and painful, but it’s also full of warmth and compassion...in some ways a tribute to Miller’s deeply imperfect parents." —PureWow

"Miller’s wry retelling of her upbringing will encourage others who also did not emerge from the cookie cutter." —Library Journal

"Kimberly Rae Miller is a brave and gifted writer, and her insightful examination of her troubled relationship with her parents will speak to anyone who has every struggled to hide a family secret. Coming Clean is a standout coming-of-age memoir. A must read." —Kjerstin Gruys, author of Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall

"Turn off the reality TV and read Coming Clean, an engrossing, beautifully written memoir of growing up in a hoarding family that treats its subject with humanity and grace." —Doreen Orion, author of Queen of the Road