Memoirs Books

Book Synopsis"A Body Across Two Hemispheres is a timely book, one many of us need and will be grateful to have read." —Shara McCallum"A Body Across Two Hemispheres is the kind of memoir that makes us more human; the kind written with tenderness about ordinary people with ordinary and exceptional, bitter and beautiful, small and big lives. Like ours." —Adriana PÁramo"Always honest and surprising, Buitron’s book showcases multiple essay forms to tell a powerful, timeless story. A wonderful debut." —Dinty W. MooreIn this electrifying debut, Victoria Buitron comes of age between Ecuador and the United States as she explores her ancestry, learns two languages, and searches for a place she can call home. It portrays not only the immigrant experience, but the often-overlooked repatriate experience while interweaving facets of depression, family history, and self-love. With the utmost honesty, A Body Across Two Hemispheres encompasses the deep and complex layers of teenage life into adulthood—and the sacrifices made along the way for Victoria to become who she was meant to be all along.Trade Review" A Body Across Two Hemispheres introduces an utterly engaging, assured new voice in nonfiction. In her memoir-in-essays, Buitron lays bare various forms of grief but presents them with equal measures of resilience." Shara McCallum, American poetTable of ContentsSouthern HemisphereBetween BordersNorthern Hemisphere

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Book SynopsisThe Undertaker is Laura Del Gaudio’s lively story of learning the family business from under the kitchen table as a child. It is how she learned empathy in the face of unspeakable traumas while understanding the impact of trauma herself. Licensed at the age of 21, she became the 3rd generation in the family business which was located at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Laura Del Gaudio has written a one-of-a-kind book, like the author herself who is authentic, a New York character as any. It is a toss up between “6 Feet Under” meets “A Bronx Tale” and The “Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade” meets “A Walker in the City.” The Undertaker is a story about suffering, and also about family, community, healing, triumph and what it means to be loyal. The Undertaker is not only by a woman-for-women, but for those who want to better understand what it means to be a woman in a world where the future is female.

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Book SynopsisA mother-daughter love story of resilience and hope against the odds Keema Waterfield grew up chasing music with her twenty-year-old mother on the Alaskan folk festival circuit, two small siblings in tow. Summers they traveled by ferry and car, sharing the family tent with a guitar, cello, and fiddle. Adrift with a revolving cast of musicians, drunks, stepdads, and one man with a gun, Keema yearned for a place to call home. Preferably with heat and flushing toilets. Trying to understand the absence of her pot-dealing father, she is drawn deeper into her mother's past instead.

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Book Synopsis This is a story of mothers. This is a story of daughters. This is a story of the trauma we carry and the trauma we tend to. So begins this multigenerational memoir that explores the author's maternal history of repeated trauma, separation, adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and their impact on mental health. Set against a twenty-year dialogue with her mother Barbara who suffers from long undiagnosed PTSD, author Elizabeth Wilcox opens her maternal history with the birth of her illegitimate grandmother Violet to a German house servant outside London in 1904. With her mother's encouragement, Wilcox goes on to trace the lives of her grandmother Violet and her mother Barbara, both of whom are deeply impacted by maternal separation and the complex trauma they have endured. Violet undergoes multiple separations: from her mother until the age of six, from her German Jewish stepfather during WWI at the age of ten, and from her own three-year-old daughter Barbara when her family escapes without her from Holland during Hitler's invasion. Later put on a train to Wales with her eighteen-month-old brother Neville during Operation Pied Piper, Barbara also tragically endures an itinerant childhood characterized by maternal separation, foster homes, boarding schools, and abuse. Through a dual timeline that is both present day and historic, Wilcox weaves together these documented and imagined voices of the women who precede her, while using her experience as a journalist and writer in the field of early childhood education and mental health to explore the impact of adverse childhood experiences on adult wellbeing and mental health. Through her work and her mother Barbara who has successfully raised seven children despite her difficult past, Wilcox also shows what it means to parent with intention, forgiveness and unconditional love.

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Book SynopsisFirst trained at the University of Miami in the late ‘70s, Bob quickly found himself playing piano and keyboardwith various bands throughout the Miami area, eventually moving to performing on cruise ships. Bythe mid-‘80s, he was travelling with pop stars such as Jose Luis Rodriguez, or “El Puma.”But the quest for fame lost its allure for Bob, and he decided to return to college to pursue a master’sdegree in piano performance at the University of Kentucky (before receiving higher degrees). Afterward,Bob found himself joining the Marine Corps as a member of the “President’s Own” Marine Band, whichprovided him an up-close view of many historic US events both at the White House and abroad.Within, journey with Bob to stages in Latin America with more than ten-thousand screaming fans to treatysignings to state dinners and presidential inaugurations. This world-class pianist has played all over theworld for rock fans, presidents, foreign leaders, as well as students and everyday music lovers. He’s alsoplayed for some of the biggest names in music today, stars who represent myriad genres. From ReneeFleming to Kid Rock, Bob’s style is versatile and accomplished.Read Keys to the

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