Jackie Ganem

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This is a story about change-the cultural change required of a Lebanese immigrant family new to the United States and the dramatic personal change that comes as the result of a family tragedy. The book is in two parts. Through a series of vignettes, the reader is introduced to a cast of unique characters in an immigrant family. Their stories are amusing and touching. The second part of the book is told in small stories and deals with the complex changes in a family after the attempted suicide and mental illness of the youngest child. The family's world as they knew it stopped. The author changed in such fundamental ways that it is as if she had two lives---one before this tragedy and one after. Her evolution took her from a traditional suburban housewife and mother to that of an ambitious career woman eager to grow and move away from all she had ever known. This is a true story told with great honesty, love, and surprising humor. "Jackie Ganem's memoir ... is a sensitive look at growing up in America in a Lebanese immigrant family. Yet, it is so much more. Ganem skillfully documents her own life as she progresses through the roles of a wife in a difficult marriage, a mother learning to relate constructively and compassionately to her troubled daughter, and a devoted partner to her lifelong companion. Ganem's prose is evocative and descriptively specific to the remarkable woman who is central to this story." -Jane Katims, author of Dancing on a Slippery Floor