Grace in the Garden by Grace Peterson

Grace in the Garden by Grace Peterson

The gardening lexicon is crowded with books describing how to garden. In these twenty-nine short chapters, Grace Peterson captures the essence of why we garden. A self-proclaimed graduate of the School of Hard Knocks, Grace never hesitates to entertain with stories drawn from her own missteps and catastrophes. However, she is also a certified Master Gardener, so make no mistake, she knows her stuff. Read this book and let Grace carry you on a river of words. You will explore tributaries where she will tease you with her wicked wit before surprising you with unexpected outcomes. In Grace's capable hands, gardening becomes an irresistible metaphor for life itself. Through it all, she will convince you that gardening is just plain fun. Ricki Grady, author of Bebop Garden, Riffing and Jiving in the Plant Kingdom and blogger at Sprig to Twig

Grace Peterson works as an administrative assistant, writes, and gardens in her spare time. She's a member of The Association of Writing Excellence and The National Association of Memoir Writers, and her writings have appeared in a number of anthologies. She maintains two websites and contributes a weekly garden section to the newspaper. She has been married to her closest friend since 1980 and is the proud mother of four adult children and four loving felines. Her second novel is now being published.

Please go to www.gracepete.com to read her blog. The author Grace Peterson's psychological harm from growing up in a chaotic environment and seeing an abusive therapist is the focus of her memoir. The story is portrayed as truthful as the author's perspective allows, rather than as creative nonfiction. The work, on the other hand, is set up like a story, with a prologue that sets the tone, a narrative with main characters, and a satisfying conclusion.

The story begins with an earthquake in the prologue. The author is a young mother who is compelled to admit she requires assistance. This establishes the tone for the rest of the book. The story begins with an overview of the narrator's troubled childhood, which includes abuse stories.

The author addresses family members as the mother, father, and sisters, implying an odd distance. The parents separate, the mother relocates to Hawaii and marries an abusive stepfather, and the mother returns the girls to their birth father on the mainland. The story follows the narrator through her high school relationships as well as her drug and sex experiments. The Watergate hearings, Jaws, and the energy crisis were background noise--this was a time when youngsters were expendable, when the parents partied upstairs while the kids played in the basement.

Several passages stand out, such as when the narrator recalls her best friend. She thinks to herself, I have enough rage in me to murder you. Panic attacks and nightmares plague Peterson. She experiences dreams as an adult that she would hurt her children, and she seeks therapy from a zealous and harsh therapist.

I started reading with suspicion, expecting another another confessional, yet the eloquence drew me in. Peterson has a knack for spotting the unusual in the ordinary. Perhaps the writer's abuse is a thread in the cultural fabric that pulls her to recovery through her writing. Stacia Levy gave it a thumbs up.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780996041300
ISBN 10	0996041303
Title	Grace in the Garden
Author	Grace Peterson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	All Things That Matter Press
Year published	2014-04-09
Number of pages	132
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.