…funny and introspective, filled with compassion and written without an ounce of affectation or disingenuousness.… Her explorations are illuminating. They’re also a kick, with a surprisingly uplifting effect. – Kirkus Reviews
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Silver Medal Winner: Independent Publishers Book Awards (2016)
Finalist: 2016 NextGeneration Indie Publishers Award (2016)
Finalist: International Book Awards (2016)
“I predicted that the pain would persist for a while, but neither of us would feed on it. We would both try to rise above it and get on with our lives, he faster than I.”
“I’d prefer to have a man doll himself up in lingerie every night than come home drunk.”
“I knew about the siren songs, abysses, bewitching spells, and strange monsters out there, but they sank out of sight in the fulfillment of my homecoming.”
THE SWEET PAIN OF BEING ALIVE
THE SWEET PAIN OF BEING ALIVE. Ann didn’t think much about secrets until she woke up one morning and found her husband Terry dead of suicide. They were both healthy and seemingly happy, so she was blindsided. As she made her way toward uncovering the reason why he had left this life, she changed the way she viewed gender, sex, marriage, right, wrong, good, and bad.
Memoir Trilogy, Book III
THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, A MEMOIR, Ann leaves New York alone in 1964 with $400 and a one-way ticket to Lisbon. She will not return for ten years, during which she lives deeply in Spain, Italy, Israel, and Greece. Like Isabel Archer, the protagonist of Henry James’s eponymous novel, she is dissatisfied with her options in America and willing to take the risk of living where she is a stranger in order to create a more satisfying life. She is fascinated by the countries she visits but brings with her a trusting American innocence that is easily taken advantage of. The new self that Ann crafts is not what she had thought she’d been seeking, but that is the point. The fictitious Isabel lived in the late 1800s; the real Ann lives among us today, but how much has really changed?