Raymond Chandler was among the most original and enduring crime novelists of the twentieth century. Yet much of his pre-writing life, including his unconventional marriage, has remained shrouded in mystery. In this compelling, wholly original book, Judith Freeman sets out to solve the puzzle of who Chandler was and how he became the writer who would create in Philip Marlowe an icon of American culture.
Visiting Chandler's many homes and apartments, Freeman uncovers vestiges of the Los Angeles that was Chandler's terrain and inspiration for his imagination. She also uncovers the life of Cissy Pascal, the older, twice-divorced woman Chandler married in 1924. A revelation of a marriage that was a wellspring of need, illusion, and creativity, The Long Embrace provides us with a more complete picture of Raymond Chandler's life and art than any we have had before.

One of her moms is pregnant What will this mean for a child who will soon be an older sibling? Her mothers prepare her for the big change in their family, and finally the baby arrives. The girl feels confused and ambivalent, but she grows at last toward happy acceptance of the baby and of her new status in the family.

"[A] touching picaresque journey through the deserts of the west and the landscape of memory."—Washington Post Book World

Verna Flake is fleeing Utah, a failed marriage (her husband has left her for a former beauty queen named Pinky), and the constricted yet reliable Mormon way of life. Seemingly naive but also gifted with an almost second sight for the emotional heart of things, Verna relates her adventures on the road, in Los Angeles, and eventually in Mexico, as she confronts her future and muses over her past. Reading group guide included.

"An almost Tolstoyian insight into the human plight.... A beautiful book."—New York Times Book Review

"Elegant and unexpected.... Literature at its best."—Chicago Tribune

"A tremendous coup for a first novel, for any novel. Freeman introduces us to an America of transcendental landscapes, cultures like forgotten flowers and festive, fierce cities.... Freeman brings her richest gifts to literature."—The Nation

"Purely, simply, beautiful."—Philadelphia Inquirer

From the writer whose voice Carolyn See has characterized as one of the strangest, most distinguished in American fiction writing today ("There is really nothing to compare her with, except, maybe, the austere beauty of a Japanese rock garden"), here is a richly dramatic novel about a woman struggling to make peace with herself as a mother, a lover, an artist, and a friend.
Lucy Patterson has just encountered her past in the person of a man whom she has not seen for twenty-five years. Dr. Carlos Cabrera saved the life of her infant son, and it was her love for him that compelled her to end her marriage -- the first moment in an arc of emotional turbulence and upheaval that has since defined her existence. Her past having caught up with her, Lucy has come to an isolated motel in the desert outside Las Vegas to write out her life, reexamine it, and, she hopes, find its calm center. It's a journey she is determined to make alone, but in the next room is a young woman -- a single mother, stripper, and prostitute panicked about her own life -- whom Lucy finds she cannot, and finally does not want to, ignore. A fiercely odd pair, they nonetheless become indispensable to each other in navigating the emotional terrain of their past and in finding, separately and together, clear paths into the future.
A Desert of Pure Feeling is the finest work we have yet seen from a writer whose gifts, at once lyrical and tough-minded, become vividly apparent in this penetrating and compelling story.

"From the Hardcover edition.

Over the past decade a rich chorus of women's voices has emerged from the West. The Stories That Shape Us is an extraordinary anthology of twenty-six personal essays by contemporary women writers, many being published here for the first time. Ranging widely across the cultures and the regions of the West, these women relate stories of family and community, of race and gender, of commitment and displacement, of grief and repair, of spirituality and connection to the earth. Against the story of the Winning of the West, of men in (and against) the natural world, these writers propose a revised narrative, one more appropriate to a world facing stark limits and ecological disaster. Their stories are not new, but until recently we have been unable to hear them. The voices in The Stories That Shape Us have been shaped by their particular regions and cultures, but they speak to the nation, and they demand attention because they tell us what we need in order to survive. The contributors to The Stories That Shape Us are as diverse as the regions they speak from. Some of them are well-established, even best-selling authors; others are new voices soon to be heard on the national scene. All are united by their passion to tell the truth about their land and their lives - to tell the stories that have shaped them and that can help shape us all.

Flora and Annie are off to stay with their grandparents for the summer. The girls will travel on their own from Cape Town on the bus, and Flora is proud that their mother has put her in charge. Flora loves lots of things about staying with Ouma and Oupa: swinging on the big old tree in the garden, baking with Ouma, playing with the other children from the neighbourhood. But there's one thing she doesn't like at all ... Nelson, their grandmother's large, red rooster. Little Annie isn't afraid of him, and Flora knows that she shouldn't be either. After all, she's supposed to be the grown-up one! But Flora can't help it - Nelson is scary and glary and he pecks hard. Will she overcome her fear?

Judith Freeman, aus einer bauerlichen Grossfamilie stammend, erkrankt zu Beginn ihres Studiums psychisch schwer und kommt in die Psychiatrie. Gemass ihrer Devise Ohne Therapie gibt es keine Heilung" kampft sie sich durchs Leben, bis sie endlich die in der Kindheit liegende Ursache ihrer Erkrankung erkennt und genesen kann. Eine authentische und hoffnungsvolle Lebensgeschichte, die unter die Haut geh

In 1857, at a place called Mountain Meadows in southern Utah, a band of Mormons and Indians massacred 120 emigrants. Twenty years later, the slaughter was blamed on one man named John D. Lee, previously a member of Brigham Young’s inner circle. Red Water imagines Lee’s extraordinary frontier life through the eyes of three of his nineteen wives. Emma is a vigorous and capable Englishwoman who loves her husband unconditionally. Ann, a bride at thirteen years old, is an independent adventurer. Rachel is exceedingly devout and married Lee to be with her sister, his first wife. These spirited women describe their struggle to survive Utah’s punishing landscape and the poisonous rivalries within their polygamous family, led by a magnetic, industrious, and considerate husband, who was also unafraid of using his faith to justify desire and ambition.