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When you were young and idealistic and you looked in the mirror, who did you see? What were your expectations for your future? What was expected of you by your family and your community? And now that you're older and have attained such prominence as a writer, activist, celebrity, how do you feel about the person you've become and the direction your life has actually taken? Are you contented or disappointed? Do you see exciting possibilities in your future, or do you believe that you've gone as far as you can go? These are the questions posed to some of our country's most gifted authors in preparation for The Face in the Mirror. Twenty celebrated writers tackled these questions, sharing with readers the heart of soul of their lives, and a book was born. In these reflective essays, the writers explore the person they expected to become or perhaps desperately wanted to be (or feared they might be), and the person they are today. How does all of this knowledge and insight affect their writing? Their responses, which range from surprising to heart-wrenching to comical (and often hilarious) to inspiring, reflect back on the reader, who is left with the same question that these eminent writers asked themselves: "When I look in that mirror, who do I see?" Each eloquent piece is certain to captivate, and make you see the world and yourself in an entirely new way. |
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Author list:
Barbara Abercrombie
Michael Bader
Lee Chamberlin
Alan Dershowitz
Beverly Donofrio
Margot Duxler
Jane Ganahl
Eileen Goudge
Sandra Gulland
Kathi Kamen Goldmark
Aviva Layton
Aimee Liu
Joyce Maynard
Malachy McCourt
Christine O'Hagan
Laurie Stone
Richard Toon
Nancy Weber
Leon Whiteson
Victoria Zackheim
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EVENTS:
Tuesday, October 20, 7:30 PM
Booksmith
1644 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA, 94117
Reading: Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Margot Duxler, Victoria Zackheim
Wednesday, November 11, 11:00 AM
Contra Costa JCC Jewish Book Fair
2071 Tice Valley Boulevard, Walnut Creek, CA
Reading: Margot Duxler and Victoria Zackheim
Sunday, December 06, 10:00 AM
Kent Middle School Jewish Book Fair
800 College, Kentfield, CA 94902
Reading: Victoria Zackheim
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EXCITING NEWS: Named by MORE Magazine as one of the 21 top reads for the season!
REVIEWS:
LIBRARY JOURNAL: Zackheim (instructor, Univ. of California-Los Angeles Extension Writers' Program; The Bone Weaver) has assembled essays from 20 authors who reflect on their advancing age and compare how they turned out with who they thought they would become when they were much younger. Among the relatively well-known essayists featured here are Malachy McCourt, Joyce Maynard, Alan Dershowitz, Beverly Donofrio, Eileen Goudge, and editor Zackheim; included are dual photos of each in youth and from the present. The authors reveal their highly personal, frank thoughts on their desire to achieve success, obstacles that hindered their life journey, their accomplishments and failures, the state of their families, how some ended up replicating their parents, and on meeting personal goals and living with unfulfilled dreams. A common thread is the writers' expressions of a sense of completeness, of becoming whole, and of learning how to live within themselves and be comfortable with whom they have become. One of the more remarkable stories is Donofrio's, sharing her life's experiences as she became a teenage mother, then a convicted felon, and later a college student and a notable author, now living in a monastery in the Colorado mountains. VERDICT: Aging boomers will likely relate to these sensitive, refreshingly honest musings that tackle universal questions about the choices faced in life and the critical self examination that comes with age. Recommended.—Dale Farris, Groves, TX
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