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Powell's Q&A, Kids' Q&A | February 2, 2012

Emily Winfield Martin: IMG Kids' Q&A: Emily Winfield Martin

2 comments By Emily Winfield Martin

Describe your new book. Oddfellow's Orphanage is a series of stories/vignettes that tell the tale of the newest arrival to a curious orphanage, a... Continue »
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    Oddfellow's Orphanage

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Swallow the Ocean: A Memoir

by Laura M. Flynn

Swallow the Ocean: A Memoir Cover

ISBN13: 9781582434612
ISBN10: 1582434611
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Synopses & Reviews

Synopsis:

When Laura Flynn was a little girl, her beautiful, dynamic mother, Sally, was the center of her imagination. It wasnt long, however, before Sallys fun-loving side slowly and methodically became absorbed by madness. As Lauras parents divorced and her father struggled to gain custody, Sallys symptoms bloomed in earnest while Laura and her sisters united in flights of fancy of the sort their mother taught them so that they might deflect the danger threatening their fragile family.

Set in 1970s San Francisco, Swallow the Ocean is redolent with place. In luminous prose, this memoir paints a most intimate portrait of what might have been a catastrophic childhood had Laura and her sisters not been resilient and determined enough to survive their environment even as they yearned to escape it.

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Sawadee Reader, April 5, 2009 (view all comments by Sawadee Reader)
Lovely, lyrical, and haunting. Laura and her sisters create an imaginary world when their mother slips into schizophrenia. The horrors of the present (a mother who lights fires and fights demons) is contrasted with what could have been. Swallow the Ocean chronicles the end of a charmed marriage and a bitter legal battle over who gets to raise the children. The story is written with tremendous compassion. The only villain is a mysterious disease. When an adult Laura and her sister Sara visit their mother with Sara's children, Laura writes: "My niece and nephew knew she was not quite right. They chatted her up anyway, telling her about dolphins and dinosaurs, about art projects at school. They're troopers, not least because Sara is exactly the kind of mother my mother was when we were small." And in that poignant sentence, we see all that was lost.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781582434612
Author:
Flynn, Laura M.
Publisher:
Counterpoint LLC
Subject:
BIO026000
Subject:
Personal Memoirs
Subject:
Biography - General
Edition Description:
First Trade Paper Edition
Publication Date:
20090231
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
288
Dimensions:
8.25 x 5.5 in 13 oz
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Swallow the Ocean: A Memoir New Trade Paper
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$15.95 In Stock
Product details 288 pages Counterpoint LLC - English 9781582434612 Reviews:
"Synopsis" by ,
When Laura Flynn was a little girl, her beautiful, dynamic mother, Sally, was the center of her imagination. It wasnt long, however, before Sallys fun-loving side slowly and methodically became absorbed by madness. As Lauras parents divorced and her father struggled to gain custody, Sallys symptoms bloomed in earnest while Laura and her sisters united in flights of fancy of the sort their mother taught them so that they might deflect the danger threatening their fragile family.

Set in 1970s San Francisco, Swallow the Ocean is redolent with place. In luminous prose, this memoir paints a most intimate portrait of what might have been a catastrophic childhood had Laura and her sisters not been resilient and determined enough to survive their environment even as they yearned to escape it.
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