The Screaming Middle

This is a memoir of a woman turning 50 who forgot to have a party. It takes you on road trips, into psych wards, into the chambers of marriage and through epic failures, brilliant ideas and back to kingdoms of chaos and castles of hilarity. There's a lot of bitching and loving, a lot of fights and great nights. It's Orwellian in its frank and unforgiving expedition through life's hardships and glories. If you thought you needed Little Golden Books when you were young then think no more about trading up to the solid gold of The Screaming Middle: the novel cure we all need. One hardly knows what to write (or what to think) after surfacing from the maelstrom of The Screaming Middle. Mind, it is screamingly funny, then, whacko! lets rip with howl after howl of anguish, then, susurrates with tenderest apprehensions. Some daredevil poet, this one is. - Jennifer Compton These plein air postcards of love, rage and lust for life are as luminous and fleeting as 9 by 5s, only we are in a car breaking down somewhere, or trawling for finds or cooking up a storm. She effortlessly blends an unpretentious erudition with the sound of now. What a rare delight and pleasure it is to encounter her ferocious care of everything. - Lucy Dougan A remarkable study of the contradictions of time. While a novel on the occasion of a fiftieth year - two great lenses through which to experience time -the work itself is composed of fragments of glass, each reflecting the other pieces. An affirmation of the mosaic real life - in all its messiness - seems to assemble on its own. - David Keplinger, Professor of Poetry, American University