Would Anybody Anywhere Ever Want to Read My Book?

Pitfall Books

Would Anybody Anywhere Ever Want to Read My Book?

I have a book finished and I worry about making an ass of myself

The late, great Spaceworm, the best cat who ever lived, the most amusing and nicest character in my book. Author photo.

The book is called The Wrapping Room: A Memoir of Structural Violence in Pre-Trump America.

I promise I won’t bug you or put you on a mailing list if you say yes, you might read it and then forget about it forever.

Nor is this a backhanded bid for attention.

My book is, God forbid, a memoir.

It’s a memoir partly concerned with severe domestic violence and partly concerned with where this country started heading after 9/11. You could see fascism coming in rural areas as early as 2002, when my odyssey started.

But parts of it are a barrel of laughs, almost, mainly because one major character is a black cat named Spaceworm, a prince among cats, who put up with me when we had to drive 1000 miles, following my husband from Illinois to a much better job in Austin, straight into the mass exodus from Hurricane Katrina.

I really, really want this book banned by school districts throughout the Red states. Then it will definitely be offered on a special table, with a big sign saying, “Banned Books” in libraries and fine bookstores throughout Minnesota, where many liberals and leftos huddle together like cheese curds and throw rocks at ICE agents. Then it will sell like hotcakes.

For those who do not keep up with The World’s Greatest Country, those are the states under the control of Trump’s party, the Republicans. I know you’ve heard of Trump, unfortunately, no matter where in the world you are.

It’s 41,498 words and 212 pages, so it’s not a doorstop.

The title, The Wrapping Room, is symbolic of the constriction of traditional women’s roles, which I saw increasingly inflicted on women even then in Illinois farming communities and again, in the relative splendor of Austin after the start of the tech boom there.

Here’s the Author’s Preface:

This is a memoir of a time when I witnessed the breakdown of American culture after 9/11, and the conditions that led to the development of fascism in our country, while surviving what one domestic violence counselor called the worst case of physical and psychological violence she had seen in her career.

I learned that the violence I experienced is linked to increasing structural violence, which became more severe as a result of the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 and its attendant threat to American masculine hegemony, militarism, and what now passes for “Christianity.”

I have worked to show how I was not just a victim, but a victimizer.

I have done my best to be fair to those involved, including my abuser, my late husband. I have changed the names of people and places and erased certain living people from the story to avoid causing them unnecessary pain.

As I reach the end of my life, I feel it’s important to share this, not only with other domestic violence survivors, but with other Americans.

I want to love my country. I want us to get better.

I still think we can.

I am thinking of presenting it chapter-by-chapter on Medium.

I have another project that will require a lot of background research and probably has more commercial potential.

Thanks for reading this and let me know what you think.