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A decade ago, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She was vivacious and selfless and joyful, and cancer took her from me. But it was not just the disease; it was intense medical malpractice and negligence, a case that should have garnered millions of dollars in lawsuits but could never bring back the person I loved most.We fought for her for months, and right until the end, we did everything we could to save her from the disease and the medical mistakes that were slowly killing her. This memoir should serve as the story of my family, the fraying threads in a tapestry that held together at all costs, but also as a guide for anyone who needs to fight for the person they love. This book is dedicated to all the patients, families, loved ones, friends, nurses, doctors, lab technicians, x-ray technicians, aids, and everyone who finds themselves either working in or needing help from an imperfect system.
A Promise Kept is the story of Cole Jenkins and Hannah Harper, two very different people whose paths seemed destined to intertwine. Cole is a newly born again Christian trying to find his calling. Hannah is a drug addict looking for hope in an unforgiving world. A friendship is formed in spite of their differences. They struggle to realize what bonds them together and what to do about it. Hannah recounts their story to Pastor Taylor, a man with a secret of his own. Cole makes a promise to Hannah that he is determined to keep. A mission trip to Haiti changes everything, however. Can Cole prove that two imperfect people can have a love that conquers all, even death?
How far would you go to keep a promise? When twelve-year-old Oliver Ainsworth promised his life to Avery Hastings, she never believed him. After years apart, through war and tragedy, it seems even more likely that he's forgotten her entirely. And she's moved on as well. Haunted by their parents' gruesome murder and the overbearing debt they'd left behind, Avery and her sister both sell themselves into different trades to make their livings, to pay back the murderer before he comes for them too. As for Oliver? The war came for him just like it came for every other young boy in their village. Or so Avery thinks. Until her employment with a wealthy family in France forces their two worlds to collide once more and she learns there's far more to the boy she knew than she could have ever imagined. Bound by a contract neither of them ever signed, they must come together again after years apart, after being worlds away, after becoming different people. A contract which states that they are overdue for their own wedding. But, after a lengthy engagement, when Oliver gives Avery the chance to opt out... will she even want to? WINNER of the Watty 2022 Historical Fiction Award
With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Neither art nor philosophy was kind to beauty during the twentieth century. Much modern art disdains beauty, and many philosophers deeply suspect that beauty merely paints over or distracts us from horrors. Intellectuals consigned the passions of beauty to the margins, replacing them with the anemic and rarefied alternative, "aesthetic pleasure." In Only a Promise of Happiness, Alexander Nehamas reclaims beauty from its critics. He seeks to restore its place in art, to reestablish the connections among art, beauty, and desire, and to show that the values of art, independently of their moral worth, are equally crucial to the rest of life. Nehamas makes his case with characteristic grace, sensitivity, and philosophical depth, supporting his arguments with searching studies of art and literature, high and low, from Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and Manet's Olympia to television. Throughout, the discussion of artworks is generously illustrated. Beauty, Nehamas concludes, may depend on appearance, but this does not make it superficial. The perception of beauty manifests a hope that life would be better if the object of beauty were part of it. This hope can shape and direct our lives for better or worse. We may discover misery in pursuit of beauty, or find that beauty offers no more than a tantalizing promise of happiness. But if beauty is always dangerous, it is also a pressing human concern that we must seek to understand, and not suppress.
Winner of 2008 Royal Palm Literary Award, the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award. "I Must Be in Heaven, a promise kept," a true, inspirational love story about two ordinary people that have spent an extraordinary life together, all because they fell in love. They were young when they met: she was twelve and he sixteen. Still, love was real. Faith, love and hope are key ingredients for any relationship. But unexpected tragedy can strike without regard, and it takes a pocketful of miracles to help even a most secure marriage. Insights into a special love, are shared with the reader. Life and strife are captured in heart-warming detail, as well as that dreadful day, "When sirens could be heard coming down the street until they ended in an abrupt death... silence." Valerie Anne Faulkner's unique ability to tell a story, combined with her own personal experience, is the premise of this book. But a promise made one lonely night is the reason it had to be told.
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
Do you know your lineage? How is your lineage connected to knowing your purpose and actually fulfilling it? The historical events written in this book will awaken and help you understand the antiquity of the descendants of Abraham from a broader perspective and their connection to a promise driven by God. This book will also ignite a desire to learn history, as well as, provide you with a better understanding of the past, present, and a guide for the future.
The “harrowing, heartbreaking, redemptive” memoir of a US Army veteran who fought through PTSD to play college football with the Clemson Tigers (Sports Illustrated). Daniel Rodriguez joined the army just weeks after graduating from high school. Almost immediately, he was deployed to Iraq and then to Afghanistan. While there, he made a promise to his best friend: “When I get out of this shithole, I’m going to play college football.” Wounded at the Battle of Kamdesh, Daniel received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He was lucky enough to make it out alive; his friend was not. Back at home, Daniel was unemployed and stuck in the clutches of PTSD, but he remembered the promise he had made and resolved to make good on it. When he posted a video online of his grueling training efforts, it went viral overnight. Through a mixture of hope, determination, and the power of the Internet, Daniel earned a spot on the Clemson University football team as a wide receiver. In Rise, Rodriguez tells his powerful and inspiring story. “A compelling story of one man’s quest to overcome the horrors of war through fortitude and determination.” —San Antonio Express News