Memoir of the author's life with her husband, his death, and her recovery.

Memoir of the author's life with her husband, his death, and her recovery.

Her life's becoming a nightmare. Samantha Stone could have a wonderful life if only other people would cooperate. Like Greg Irvington, for instance. He's the man Sam always knew she'd end up with...right up until the moment he told her he's in love with someone else. Then there's her family, who have this annoying habit of disapproving of the way she lives. And don't even get her started about the holidays, which Sam would really prefer to be cancelled for a year or two -- at least. All that changes when Alex Graham comes into her life. He's the man of her dreams. Alex Graham is smart, sexy, successful, sensitive, and ready to commit. There aren't many guys like him around; in fact, there aren't any. He's a figment of Sam's imagination -- one she makes the mistake of mentioning to her friends, her family, and Greg because she's tired of going it alone. And why should she have to when there are struggling actors like Mark Simpson eager to take on the role of Alex? Everyone who meets him swoons. Pretty soon, though, Mark's taking his role so seriously that Alex is more trouble than a real boyfriend. It's quickly becoming obvious that in order to reclaim her life and her self, Sam is going to have to end the charade...and break everyone else's heart in the process.

In this substantial selection of her occasional journalism, poet Wanda Coleman has judiciously reshaped articles, essays, interviews and columns written over three decades (for, among other places, the Los Angeles Times. L.A. Weekly and The Free Press) into a nearly-seamless personal narrative: "a tour through the restless emotional topography of Los Angeles as glimpsed through the scattered fragments of my living memory."