I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway: A Memoir

From foster homes to three marriages, a daughter unpicks the wild legacy of loving a charismatic, incarcerated father.

Television writer Tracy McMillan’s comic literary road trip into the heart and soul of her relationship with her father—a convicted pimp, drug dealer, and felon—and what it has meant for her relationships with men.

Tracing her journey through a dozen foster placements and three divorces, McMillan examines how growing up around pimps and prison visiting rooms fueled her adult man issues.

Like a cross between The Glass Castle and Hypocrite in a Poufy White Dress, I Love You and I’m Leaving You Anyway is funny, inspiring, and truly unique.

• Family Dynamics: Follows McMillan’s turbulent childhood between a dozen Midwestern foster placements, a strict Lutheran parsonage, and her father’s glamorous, unpredictable home.
• Against the Odds: Chronicles visiting days at Leavenworth and Oxford federal prisons, where box lunches of Kentucky Fried Chicken and games of blackjack sustained an enduring father-daughter bond.
• Raw Honesty: Recounts her third marriage to an agoraphobic commercial director whose sudden infidelities and frantic excuses forced her to confront her own pattern of romantic delusion.
• Life Lessons: Shows how raising her young son Sam and guiding him through Paris taught her how to step back, listen, and truly understand men.