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A Mother's Cry: A Memoir of Politics, Prison, and Torture Under the Brazilian Military Dictatorship
by Lina Penna SattaminiDuring the late 1960s and early 1970s, Brazil's dictatorship arrested, tortured, and interrogated many people it suspected of subversion; hundreds of those arrested were killed in prison. In May 1970, Marcos P. S. Arruda, a young political activist, was seized in So Paulo, imprisoned, and tortured. A Mother's Cry is the harrowing story of Marcos's incarceration and his family's efforts to locate him and obtain his release. Marcos's mother, Lina Penna Sattamini, was living in the United States and working for the U. S. State Department when her son was captured. After learning of his arrest, she and her family mobilized every resource and contact to discover where he was being held, and then they launched an equally intense effort to have him released. Marcos was freed from prison in 1971. Fearing that he would be arrested and tortured again, he left the country, beginning eight years of exile. Lina Penna Sattamini describes her son's tribulations through letters exchanged among family members, including Marcos, during the year that he was imprisoned. Her narrative is enhanced by Marcos's account of his arrest, imprisonment, and torture. James N. Green's introduction provides an overview of the political situation in Brazil, and Latin America more broadly, during that tumultuous era. In the 1990s, some Brazilians began to suggest that it would be best to forget the trauma of that era and move on. Lina Penna Sattamini wrote her memoir as a protest against historical amnesia. First published in Brazil in 2000, A Mother's Cry is testimonial literature at its best. It conveys the experiences of a family united by love and determination during years of political repression.
A Mother's Dance: One Step Back---Two Steps Forward, Full Circle
by Pattie Welek Hall"Pattie's touching memoir is the heart and soul of a mother's love---from happiness to despair, and everything in-between. It will inspire you to face calamitous events and refuse to be conqurered by them." ~National Jefferson Award Winner Dave Pelzer, Auth or "A Child Called 'It'". How does one measure the depth of a mother's love? Pattie never thought it possible until she experienced every mother's worst nightmare--twice. With all three kids in college and thriving, Pattie is excited about embarking on her new career as community relations manager at Barnes & Noble. That is, until she receives word that her nineteen-year-old son has been admitted to the Medical University of South Carolina and tagged "John Doe" after he suffered a traumatic brain injury. Now her sole concern is to get to Charleston, 250 miles away, before he takes his final breath. Although Casey is given only twenty-four hours to live, Pattie clings to her faith and refuses to accept her son's death sentence. During Casey's long and arduous healing, Pattie takes a hard look at the past--the kid's tender childhood memories, their challenging teenage years, the skeletons in the closet, and the circumstances that have formed her into who she has become. When tragedy strikes again, Pattie must make a choice--to remain stuck in her grief or to step into the life she's meant to create. Moving and heart-wrenching, A Mother's Dance, is a story about hope, perseverance, self-discovery, hard choices, and most importantly about love. . .the sad and the wondrous. "I wrote this book in hopes it would bring healing to others," Hall says. "Instead I discovered that I was the one who healed."
A Mother's Nightmare: A Heartrending Journey into Near Fatal Childhood Illness
by Cathy CrimminsIn the tradition of Lorenzo's Oil, a brutally searing story of one mother's quest to save her child's life.One day Kelly Crimmins was a happy seemingly healthy twelve-year-old; the next she confessed to her mom that she'd had blood in her urine for months. After a series of tests, Kelly was diagnosed with a life-threatening, potentially terminal autoimmune disease.A Mother's Nightmare details Cathy and Kelly's three-year medical and emotional journey, which took them from Philadelphia to Minnesota's Mayo Clinic and back again. Cathy writes about the toll taken on a young girl who suddenly becomes a patient, and about a mom who in fighting for her little girl's life becomes sick herself with worry and fear. As she did in her award-winning Where Is the Mango Princess?, Cathy makes illness both personal and universal. It's an account all readers will find memorable and moving.
A Mother's Promise: My true story of surviving Auschwitz and the horrors of the Holocaust, the Sunday Times bestseller
by Kate Thompson Renee Salt'Mama, it's me.' I held her hand in mine, hoping it would give her the strength to hold on. Finally, she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper.'Do not cry when I die.''Quite simply the most important book you will read this year' Hazel Gaynor'An extraordinary read' Lorraine Kelly'Deeply moving' Daily MailFrom invasion to liberation, September 1939 to April 1945, as Renee was marched from ghetto to camp, there was one constant. One hand that clutched hers - her mother's. Every day for nearly six years, mother and daughter were bound together in hell. From Auschwitz-Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen, they were a powerful source of solace and hope for one another.The strength of Sala's love gave them both something fragile yet beautiful to cling to in an ugly, depraved world. It was her mother who hid Renee, lied to the SS, went right when she was directed left - whose small actions had life-saving consequences. Now, for Renee, the need to share has finally overcome the desire to forget.A Mother's Promise is a love letter to a mother eighty years in the making.*****'Will stay with me for a long time... A beautiful account, so movingly told' Anna Stuart'Powerful, poignant, and deeply important. A must-read' Elizabeth Bellak 'This is a story the world needs to know' Madeline Martin 'This book travels to the very heart of existence' Joshua Levine
A Mother's Promise: My true story of surviving Auschwitz and the horrors of the Holocaust, the Sunday Times bestseller
by Kate Thompson Renee Salt'Mama, it's me.' I held her hand in mine, hoping it would give her the strength to hold on. Finally, she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper.'Do not cry when I die.''Quite simply the most important book you will read this year' Hazel Gaynor'An extraordinary read' Lorraine Kelly'Deeply moving' Daily MailFrom invasion to liberation, September 1939 to April 1945, as Renee was marched from ghetto to camp, there was one constant. One hand that clutched hers - her mother's. Every day for nearly six years, mother and daughter were bound together in hell. From Auschwitz-Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen, they were a powerful source of solace and hope for one another.The strength of Sala's love gave them both something fragile yet beautiful to cling to in an ugly, depraved world. It was her mother who hid Renee, lied to the SS, went right when she was directed left - whose small actions had life-saving consequences. Now, for Renee, the need to share has finally overcome the desire to forget.A Mother's Promise is a love letter to a mother eighty years in the making.*****'Will stay with me for a long time... A beautiful account, so movingly told' Anna Stuart'Powerful, poignant, and deeply important. A must-read' Elizabeth Bellak 'This is a story the world needs to know' Madeline Martin 'This book travels to the very heart of existence' Joshua Levine
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
by Andrew Solomon Sue KleboldOn April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives. For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently? These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts. Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother’s Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent. Author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable foundations focusing on mental health issues— Washington Post, Best Memoirs of 2016
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
by Andrew Solomon Sue KleboldOn April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives. For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently? These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts. Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother’s Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent. Author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable foundations focusing on mental health issues— Washington Post, Best Memoirs of 2016
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
by Sue Klebold<P>On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. <P>Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives. <P>For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan's mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently? These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. <P>In A Mother's Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts. <P>Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother's Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
A Mother's Touch: The Tiffany Callo Story
by Jay MathewsThe author, a journalist, retraces the life of Tiffany Callo and her battle to regain custody of her two children. Tiffany, a teenage mother living on public assistence, was deemed an unfit mother by the children's services of Santa Clara County, CA. Her disability - cerebral palsy - was used as a major strike against her. Callo's case aroused wide publicity and helped arouse interest in the rights and concerns of parents with disabilities.
A Mother's War: One Woman's Fight for the Truth Behind Her Son's Death at Deepcut
by Yvonne Collinson HeathYvonne Collinson Heath will never forget the telephone call that changed her life for ever. On 23 March 2002, her eldest son, James – a private with the Royal Logistic Corps – was found dead in mysterious circumstances at the notorious Deepcut barracks. He had a single gunshot wound to the head. It was a tragedy that to this day raises questions.A Mother’s War recounts Yvonne’s anguish at losing her son, a boy who dreamed of serving his country but died before he had even reached his 18th birthday. It is also the powerful story of an extraordinary woman who overcame adversity – including the hurt of being abandoned by her father, bullied as a child and abused by a trusted uncle – to find love and raise a son, only to see him cruelly taken from her within weeks of his joining the Army. It reveals how her decade-long quest for answers uncovered sinister secrets and a series of cover-ups that went right to the heart of Whitehall.Above all else, A Mother’s War is the story of how Yvonne’s grief triggered a search for the truth that took her to Downing Street and captured the hearts of the nation.
A Mountain Woman
by Elia Wilkinson PeattieA vivacious tale of a woman in which Peattie has effectively expressed that Nature can capture a man's most innate ideas and feelings. <P> <P> The woman who is captivated by the splendor around her and artificial life-style of cities is compared with the heartwarming experience of the one living close to nature. The portrayal of rustic life is picturesque and fascinating!
A Mountain of Crumbs
by Elena GorokhovaElena Gorokhova grows up in 1960's Leningrad where she discovers that beauty and passion can be found in unexpected places in Soviet Russia.
A Mouth Sweeter than Salt: An African Memoir
by Toyin FalolaA Mouth Sweeter Than Salt gathers the stories and reflections of the early years of Toyin Falola, the grand historian of Africa and one of the greatest sons of Ibadan, the notable Yoruba city-state in Nigeria. Redefining the autobiographical genre altogether, Falola miraculously weaves together personal, historical, and communal stories, along with political and cultural developments in the period immediately preceding and following Nigeria's independence, to give us a unique and enduring picture of the Yoruba in the mid-twentieth century. This is truly a literary memoir, told in language rich with proverbs, poetry, song, and humor. Falola's memoir is far more than the story of one man's childhood experiences; rather, he presents us with the riches of an entire culture and community--its history, traditions, pleasures, mysteries, household arrangements, forms of power, struggles, and transformations.
A Mouthful of Stars: A Constellation of Favorite Recipes from My World Travels
by Kim SuneeThe acclaimed author of Trail of Crumbs shares recipes and stories from her many culinary adventures in this beautifully illustrated cookbook.From Seoul to New Orleans, Provence, and beyond, Kim Sunee has spent her life exploring the world and its many cuisines. In A Mouthful of Stars, she shares her interpretation of some of her favorite recipes and cooking discoveries from her many travels. Recipes range from Tuscan crostini di fegatini to Louisiana dirty rice, traditional North African dishes, and favorites from the years she spent in Provence and Paris. Each one tells a story of discovery and new horizons, of cherished togetherness, or replenishing solitude. A Mouthful of Stars is a culinary journey celebrating the author’s time in many lands and cooking in many kitchens.
A Mouthful of Stars: A Constellation of Favorite Recipes from My World Travels
by Kim SuneeThe acclaimed author of Trail of Crumbs shares recipes and stories from her many culinary adventures in this beautifully illustrated cookbook.From Seoul to New Orleans, Provence, and beyond, Kim Sunee has spent her life exploring the world and its many cuisines. In A Mouthful of Stars, she shares her interpretation of some of her favorite recipes and cooking discoveries from her many travels. Recipes range from Tuscan crostini di fegatini to Louisiana dirty rice, traditional North African dishes, and favorites from the years she spent in Provence and Paris. Each one tells a story of discovery and new horizons, of cherished togetherness, or replenishing solitude. A Mouthful of Stars is a culinary journey celebrating the author’s time in many lands and cooking in many kitchens.
A Moveable Feast (Virago Modern Classics)
by Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway's classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, now available in a restored edition, includes the original manuscript along with insightful recollections and unfinished sketches.Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most enduring works. Since Hemingway's personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined the changes made to the text before publication. Now, this special restored edition presents the original manuscript as the author prepared it to be published. Featuring a personal Foreword by Patrick Hemingway, Ernest's sole surviving son, and an Introduction by grandson of the author, Seán Hemingway, editor of this edition, the book also includes a number of unfinished, never-before-published Paris sketches revealing experiences that Hemingway had with his son, Jack, and his first wife Hadley. Also included are irreverent portraits of literary luminaries, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford, and insightful recollections of Hemingway's own early experiments with his craft. Widely celebrated and debated by critics and readers everywhere, the restored edition of A Moveable Feast brilliantly evokes the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the unbridled creativity and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.
A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition
by Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway&’s classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, now available in a restored edition, includes the original manuscript along with insightful recollections and unfinished sketches.Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway&’s most enduring works. Since Hemingway&’s personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined the changes made to the text before publication. Now, this special restored edition presents the original manuscript as the author prepared it to be published. Featuring a personal foreword by Patrick Hemingway, Ernest&’s sole surviving son, and an introduction by grandson of the author, Seán Hemingway, editor of this edition, the book also includes a number of unfinished, never-before-published Paris sketches revealing experiences that Hemingway had with his son, Jack, and his first wife Hadley. Also included are irreverent portraits of literary luminaries, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford, and insightful recollections of Hemingway&’s own early experiments with his craft. Widely celebrated and debated by critics and readers everywhere, the restored edition of A Moveable Feast brilliantly evokes the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the unbridled creativity and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.
A Muddy Trench: Hamish Mann, Black Watch, Officer-Poet, 1896–1917
by Jacquie ButtrissThe recent discovery of a wooden chest, unopened for 100 years revealed a treasure trove of eloquent trench diaries, letters and poetry. The author was Hamish Mann, a young Black Watch subaltern killed in France in 1917 just five days after his 21st birthday.Thanks to Manns outstanding literary gifts and prodigious output, this book re-lives his fateful journey from the declaration of war, his voluntary work at a military hospital, his training and commission and, finally, his service with 8th Black Watch on the Somme.The daily hardship and trauma he experienced at the Front were shared with countless thousands of his comrades. But Hamishs extraordinary gift was his ability to record the traumatic events and the range of his emotions, writing often in his dug-out by the light of a guttering candle.A century on, thanks to the Familys discovery and Jacquie Buttrisss sensitive commentary, Hamishs tragically short life can be celebrated and his literary legacy given the recognition it so richly deserves.
A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime
by Casey ShermanUSA TODAY BESTSELLER"A wild ride beneath the glitz and glamour of 1950s Hollywood, proving once again that Casey Sherman is a master of the genre."—Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of Dumb Money, Bringing Down the House, and The Accidental BillionairesThe dark story behind the bright lights of TinseltownFrom the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all—a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating mobster Johnny Stompanato, thug for the infamous west coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana's teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother's life deteriorate as Stompanato's intense jealousy took over. Eventually, the physical and emotional abuse became too much to bear, and Lana attempted to break it off with Johnny—with disastrous consequences. The details of what happened that fateful night remain foggy, but it ended in a series of frantic phone calls and Stompanato dead on Lana's bedroom floor, with Cheryl claiming to have plunged a knife into his abdomen in an attempt to protect her mother. The subsequent murder trial made for the biggest headlines of the year, its drama eclipsing every Hollywood movie.New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown's velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the 20th century's most notorious true crime tales.
A Music Journey Remembered: The Life and Times of Brad Evans, Musician
by Bradley W. KuhnsBrad Evans has been an entertainer fo over 50 years. Brad and his group, the "Encores" made a unique sound that crossed racial, ethnic and cultural lines. Starting with Brad's humble beginnings growing up in a small coal mining town in Pitt Gas, Pennsylvania, to rolling with the famous "Rat Pack", as a musician, sideman, Brad lived in an adult Disneyland, a world where partying, booze, super fine ladies and big money was the norm in the raucous 50's, 60's and 70's.. He crossed paths with the mob and rubbed shoulders and became friends with some of America's biggest stars like, Elvis The Rat Pack, Nat King Cole, Frankie Laine, Phyllis Diller and many other celebrities of the day. He was popular, in demand, and was asked to perform with headliners. Brad was a shy and polite person who accepted the entertainment business in stride. Brad and his groups on-stage presence made him somewhat of a Vegas nightclub staple. A perennial bachelor and involved with numerous women during his music career, Brad had many colorful relationships. This book is an interesting tale of a musicians life of ambition, heartaches - - and a life with few regrets.
A Muslim American Slave
by Alison Liebhafsky Des ForgesBorn to a wealthy family in West Africa around 1770, Omar Ibn Said was abducted and sold into slavery in the United States, where he came to the attention of a prominent North Carolina family after filling “the walls of his room with piteous petitions to be released, all written in the Arabic language,” as one local newspaper reported. Ibn Said soon became a local celebrity, and in 1831 he was asked to write his life story, producing the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic. In A Muslim American Slave, scholar and translator Ala Alryyes offers both a definitive translation and an authoritative edition of this singularly important work, lending new insights into the early history of Islam in America and exploring the multiple, shifting interpretations of Ibn Said’s narrative by the nineteenth-century missionaries, ethnographers, and intellectuals who championed it. This edition presents the English translation on pages facing facsimile pages of Ibn Said’s Arabic narrative, augmented by Alryyes’s comprehensive introduction, contextual essays and historical commentary by leading literary critics and scholars of Islam and the African diaspora, photographs, maps, and other writings by Omar Ibn Said. The result is an invaluable addition to our understanding of writings by enslaved Americans and a timely reminder that “Islam” and “America” are not mutually exclusive terms. This edition presents the English translation on pages facing facsimile pages of Ibn Said’s Arabic narrative, augmented by Alryyes’s comprehensive introduction and by photographs, maps, and other writings by Omar Ibn Said. The volume also includes contextual essays and historical commentary by literary critics and scholars of Islam and the African diaspora: Michael A. Gomez, Allan D. Austin, Robert J. Allison, Sylviane A. Diouf, Ghada Osman, and Camille F. Forbes. The result is an invaluable addition to our understanding of writings by enslaved Americans and a timely reminder that “Islam” and “America” are not mutually exclusive terms.
A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb
by Umar F. Abd-AllahA biography of Alexander Russell Webb, a central figure of American Islam during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A native of the Hudson Valley, he was a journalist, editor, and civil servant. Raised a Presbyterian, Webb early on began to cultivate an interest in other religions and became particularly fascinated by Islam. While serving as U.S. consul to the Philippines in 1887, he took a greater interest in the faith and embraced it in 1888, becoming one of the first Americans known to have done so. Within a few years, he began corresponding with important Muslims in India. Webb became an enthusiastic propagator of the faith, founding the first Islamic institution in the United States: the American Mission. He wrote numerous books intended to introduce Islam to Americans, started the first Islamic press in the United States, published a journal entitled the Modern World, and served as the representative of Islam at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In 1901, he was appointed Honorary Turkish Consul General in New York and was invited to Turkey, where he received two Ottoman medals of merit. In this first-ever biography of Webb, Umar F. Abd-Allah examines Webb's life and uses it as a window through which to explore the early history of Islam in America. Except for his adopted faith, every aspect of Webb's life was, as Abd-Allah shows, quintessentially characteristic of his place and time. It is because he was so typically American that he was able to serve as Islam's ambassador to America (and vice versa).
A Mysterious Life and Calling
by Charlotte S. Riley Crystal J. Lucky Joycelyn K. MoodyA rare discovery, A Mysterious Life and Calling is the autobiography of Charlotte Levy Riley, who was born into slavery but after emancipation achieved a fulfilling career as a preacher in the South Carolina Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, schoolteacher, and civil servant. Although several nineteenth-century accounts by black preaching women in the northern states are known, this is the first memoir by a black woman preaching in the South, both before and after the Civil War, to be discovered. Born in 1839, Charlotte Riley recounts her unusual experiences growing up as a young slave girl in Charleston under the protection of her parents and the dominion of her wealthy owners. She was taught to read, write, and sew, despite laws forbidding black literacy, and while still a slave married a free black architect. Raised a Presbyterian, she writes in her memoir of her conversion at age fourteen to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, embracing its ecstatic worship and led by her own spiritual visions. After the war, she separated permanently from her husband, who objected to her call to preach, and despite poor health pursued a career into the early twentieth century as a licensed minister of the AME church, a powerful preacher at multiracial revivals, and a school teacher and principal. She contributed to the civic development of South Carolina in the post-Reconstruction era and early twentieth century, including appointment in 1885 as postmistress of Lincolnville, an all-black incorporated town in South Carolina. She published her autobiography around 1902. Crystal J. Lucky discovered Riley's forgotten book in the archives of the Stokes Library at the historically black Wilberforce University in Ohio. She provides an introduction and notes to the narrative, explaining Riley's references to contemporaries, events, society, and religious practice throughout her childhood and the turbulent years of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Lucky also places A Mysterious Life and Calling in the context of other spiritual autobiographies and slave narratives.
A Mysterious Something in the Light: Raymond Chandler: A Life
by Tom Williams“A remarkably detailed portrait of the famously hard-boiled writer” and creator of the popular gumshoe, Philip Marlowe (Publishers Weekly).What we know of Raymond Chandler is shrouded in secrets and half-truths as deceptive as anything in his magisterial novel The Long Goodbye. Now, drawing on new interviews, previously unpublished letters, and archives on both sides of the Atlantic, literary gumshoe Tom Williams casts light on this most mysterious of writers.The Chandler revealed is a man troubled by loneliness and desertion from an early age—experiences that fueled his writing as much as they scarred his life. Born in Chicago in 1888, his childhood was overshadowed by the cruel collapse of his parents’ marriage and his father’s alcohol-fueled violence. After his mother fled America, Chandler was schooled in London, but felt constrained by the stuffy English class system, eventually returning to the land of his birth, where—in corruption-ridden Los Angeles—he met his one great love: Cissy Pascal, a married woman eighteen years his senior.It was only during middle age, after his own alcoholism wrecked a lucrative career as an oilman, that Chandler seriously turned to crime fiction, although his success was to prove bittersweet. An obsessive attitude towards his craft, unrealized literary ambitions and a suicidal turn after Cissy’s death combined to prevent him from recapturing the verve of his earlier writing. But his legacy—the lonely, ambiguous world of Philip Marlowe—endures, compelling generation after generation of crime writers to go down mean streets.In this long-awaited new biography, the most thorough and comprehensive yet written, Tom Williams shadows one of the twentieth century’s true literary giants and considers how crime was raised to the level of art.Praise for A Beautiful Something in the Light“Williams dutifully records these facts but deftly keeps the reader interested. . . . [A Beautiful Something in the Light] is well researched, but because it is so well written it should be of interest to scholars and mystery fans alike.” —Washington Independent Review of Books“Outstanding. . . . Williams writes sensitively about the Cissy relationship and delves illuminatingly into the composition of Chandler’s masterpieces. . . . Thanks to his biography Chandler himself is a less mysterious something than he was.” —Sunday Times (UK)“Precise, kindly, and necessary.” —Scotland on Sunday (UK)“A clear-eyed, compassionate biography.” —Kirkus Reviews
A Mysterious Something in the Light: The Life of Raymond Chandler
by Tom WilliamsDrawing on new interviews, previously unpublished letters, and archives, this biography casts a new light on Raymond Chandler, one of the most mysterious of writers. The man revealed was troubled by loneliness and desertion from an early age--experiences that informed his writing as much as they scarred his life. The bleak picture details the collapse of his parents' marriage, and the relocation of Chandler and his mother to Ireland, and later London, due to his father's alcohol-fueled violence. In his 20s, he returned to the United States and he met his one great love, Cissy Pascal, a married woman 18 years his senior. Only during middle age, after his own alcoholism dissolved a lucrative career as an oilman, did Chandler turn to crime fiction, although his success proved bittersweet. His literary obsession, ambition, and suicidal turn after Cissy's death combined to prevent him from living up to the promise of his first novels. This long-awaited biography shadows one of the true literary giants of the 20th century and considers how crime writing was raised to the level of art.