Exclusive: Listen to an Excerpt from Cher: The Memoir: Part One

Hi, this is Cher

As you listen, you'll notice that at a certain point in each chapter, a different voice takes over

Not just any voice, but my friend and Tony Award winner for the Cher show, Stephanie J. Block

Chapter 2. I'm so lonesome I could cry. By the age of 18, Jackie Jean was an accident waiting to happen

She looked like a movie star, built like a goddess with an incredible body

a mane of chestnut hair, and always dressed with perfect taste. You'd never know all her clothes came from the thrift store

But on the inside, she was still a country girl at heart and far too easy to manipulate

She'd been raised a Baptist, and it had been drilled into her by my grandpa

that she should never have sex with a man until she was married

"'Dult you ever let a man touch you unless you're wed,' her father warned her repeatedly

"'no doubt reflecting on his own history. "'With his words ringing in her ears, Jackie Jean got it into her head

"'that she could get pregnant even if she French kissed a boy

"'And after her childhood molestation, "'she was determined to avoid sex until she met Mr. Wright

smooth Armenian father Johnny Sarkesian Mr Wrong from the outset And when he asked my mom to jitterbug with him at a hairy James big band dance in Fresno California in 1944 her instincts warned her to be careful The spoiled youngest son

of a large Armenian family, Johnny was a year older than mom, but wore the kind of flashy clothes

and jewelry that gave him an air of greater maturity. He wasn't her type and was too short for her taste

but when they danced together, her blousecock caught on his shirt button

and she literally couldn't get away. By the time he unhooked her, she realized that not only was he a good dancer

but possessed a certain charm. They started dating at a time when life had a heightened reality

and a sense of spontaneity because of the war raging across Europe

Even though Johnny had been drafted into the U.S. Coast Guard before he was medically discharged

neither he nor my mom had any first-hand experience of World War II

When Mom's best friend Anne started dating Johnny's best friend Johnny Kovorkin

Mom was persuaded to go horseback riding with them but almost fell off when her saddle slipped

Johnny saved her, his first grandstand play. His next was to teach her how to drive and promise her his Buick convertible

After that, the couple started seeing each other regularly, but she wouldn sleep with him because they weren married One night in a club where Jackie Jean worked as a waitress and singer a customer who knew Johnny weakness for gambling threw some money on the table and told him

Stop mooning around her like a sick cow, marry her. He challenged him to drive her to Reno, Nevada

where couples could marry with no waiting period, cheered on by friends with a similar idea

four of them left that night, beguiled by his charm and apparent stability

and impressed by his age and experience, mom found him strong, quiet, and capable

Before she knew it, she was pronounced Mrs. Sarkesian in a hasty double wedding

Having turned 19 and having not yet found her sass, it didn't occur to my mother to say no

even though she thought, what am I doing? And was so unhappy, it was all she could do not to cry

Less than 24 hours after the ceremony and still a virgin, she walked out on Johnny and fled back to Fresno

where a friend promised to help her apply for an annulment. My father followed and wouldn't hear of it

How do you know you don't want to be married? he protested. You haven't even tried it. Give it three months

Gullible and trapped, my mother was living in a time when women had little or no support from society

So seeing no other way out, She went back to Johnny even though she claimed she never loved or trusted him Yeah mom whatever He could always out me out me and out me I was no match for him and he charmed me into it

And by it, I knew she meant sex. The women in my family rarely chose their men well

and Jackie Jean was no exception. But with Linda, her sole role model, she stood little chance

beneath his polished veneer, my father would become a heroin addict, with a pension for larceny and a shaky relationship to employment

Not that she knew that to begin with. As newlyweds, my parents led a chaotic, nomadic existence

living on my mother's wages and staying with Armenian relatives until their patience

or funds, ran out. Johnny's family was disappointed because no one had

ever married a non-Armenian woman. But seeing as my dad was the spoiled child, they forgave him

except for my grandmother, who was very upset and said, Hovannis, she's too long for you. The only relative who really welcomed my mom was Aunt Roxy

who wasn't at all traditional like the rest of them. She wanted to be an American girl and do

everything my mom did. They got on like a house on fire

but it wasn't enough to keep her with my dad