The Call of the Wild Child Memoir by WL Lee Noble

Lee Noble was born in 1965 in a small Texas town outside a big city, the eldest of five children born to a lonely sixteen-year-old who had fallen for a violent, unattached first love. His father, Sonny, was gone by the time Lee was three. His mother was not equipped to raise children; she had barely been raised herself. Her own mother had been murdered in front of her when she was three years old.

What followed was a childhood spent parenting. By eight, Lee was the one feeding his brothers and sisters, the one holding the household together, the one watching domestic violence at close range and absorbing all of it. He learned early that no one was coming for them.

He learned something harder too. Somewhere in it he decided he would not be a victim and he would not be a statistic. He would be his own hero first, so that he could be of use to someone else later. That decision took him out of the house and into the United States Air Force, and then into a career in law enforcement from which he retired as a Captain over a Criminal Investigations Division.

The Call Of The Wild Child is unsparing about the abuse, the addiction, and the poverty. It is equally unsparing about forgiveness: what it costs, what it does not excuse, and why Lee extended it anyway to the person who had hurt him most. It is a hard story with an ending worth reaching.

A childhood spent parenting

Before he was old enough to be left alone, Lee was the one keeping four younger children fed and safe. The book stays inside that experience rather than describing it from a distance: the daily arithmetic of survival, and the particular loneliness of being the only person in a house who understands what is happening in it.

"He learned early that no one was coming for them."

The weight of the truth

Secrets like these do not announce themselves every day, but they shape who you become, how you react, how you do relationships. Deciding to shine a light on them is heavier work than keeping them.

"The weight is heavier being honest than it was to keep the secret."

Forgiveness, and what it does not excuse

Forgiveness in this book is not the tidy ending. Lee had already forgiven his mother before he wrote a word, and the book explains how he got there: by learning who she was apart from being his mother. Abused by men. Abandoned by her father. Her own mother murdered in front of her at three.

"There's a reason for everything, but there's no excuse for everything."

Get in touch

The Call of the Wild Child

No one was coming for them.

Three things Lee wants you to understand.

A childhood spent parenting

The weight of the truth

Forgiveness, and what it does not excuse

"When there's domestic violence in a house, the children are suffering just as bad as the person being assaulted, even if nobody ever touches them. It writes itself into their development. Kids don't have the mental capacity or the maturity to understand what's happening in front of them."

Read in one sitting.

A hard story with an ending worth reaching.