Richard Bryan Pelzer is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 public speaker, memoirist and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

. Pelzer is the fourth of five sons of Stephen Pelzer and Catherine Roerva. He is author of A Brother’s Journey as well as the sequel entitled A Teenager’s Journey.

He is married with four children.

Abuse as a child

Pelzer is the author of a number of New York Times best-sellers, including A Brother’s Journey, an account of the story of his young adult life.

Controversy

A rather heated argument has been alleged between Richard Pelzer and his brother Dave Pelzer

Dave Pelzer

David James Pelzer is an American author, best known for his 1995 memoir of childhood abuse, A Child Called "It"....

, who wrote A Child Called "It" about his own abuse by his mother. Questions about Richard’s brother’s memories have been raised concerning Dave’s heavily one sided depiction of his childhood. Numerous articles have been associated with Richard’s brother including The Mail on Sunday

The Mail on Sunday

The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...

("Is He Making 'It' All Up?"), the New York Times Magazine ("Dysfunction for Dollars", by Pat Jordan, July 28, 2002), and the online magazine Slate

Slate (magazine)

Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...

("Dave Pelzer - The Child Abuse Entrepreneur")

Reviews

• Booklist, November 15, 2004, Stephanie Zvirin, review of A Brother's Journey: Surviving a Childhood of Abuse, p. 538.
• Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2004, review of A Brother's Journey, p. 995.
• Library Journal, January 1, 2005, Antoinette Brinkman, review of A Brother's Journey, p. 132.
• Publishers Weekly, November 15, 2004, review of A Brother's Journey, p. 50.

Resources

• Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006.