When not to launch a new book: when hurricanes come like a series of stepping stones

Of course, of course, hurricanes make problems for all people in their paths. Still, I don't launch a new book all that frequently, and it does seem hard that Dolly and Gustav and Ike have to be having their adventures just now. Especially Ike, which may wash over my lovely little isle in my lovely little town on the Gulf Coast, leaving us looking like Biloxi after Katrina.

Hurricane or no, in various ways I'm looking for the people who will want to find my book. "Survivor's Guide to Grief" is designed specifically for the person newly in the paralysis, the zombiehood, of new total grief. It will help them because the book was written when I was in just such a state--astonished that such a pain could go on and on and on. It is extremely informal; not one footnote. I hope it sounds like an experienced friend talking over the kitchen table with a new survivor. We need this kind of help.

One of my friends has bought five copies to give to churches in his vicinity; another is giving several directly to friends who have lost people they loved.

I hope someone who happens upon my blog will also respond to this way of helping people in need, including themselves. If so, y'all know how to reach me--I'm still getting set up with some bookstores, but you can order from Amazon or from me directly by posting to this blog or emailing me at: pchapman01@charter.net or www.patricialucechapman.blogspot.com. The book sells for $14.95, with $3.00 postage and handling for a total of $17.95. Texans add a $1.23 tax to that, for a total for Texans of $19.18.

Have to close up and continue preparing for the arrival of Ike!

Initial reactions to my new book, "Survivor's Guide to Grief"

I seem to be driven by compulsions of different kinds in selecting what I am going to write. Perhaps most creative people have equally little choice over what they want to create.


With this book, I found the experience of living, of just being, after the sudden unanticipated death of my true blue, my one-and-only, excruciatingly painful. I began to observe myself stumbling through one day after another and realized that it was as though I were watching myself from outside myself getting guillotined. The actual physical pain and the progress of the grief fascinated me; and I began to take notes.


I also found that there was almost nothing to read which was simple and honest enough for me. My brains were in a shambles and my confusion not possible to describe except to someone who has been there. Most books dealt with a years-long anticipated death caused by long-term diseases such as cancer, where the grieving went on and on before the actual death. I wished that I had had the book to read that I was beginning to write, about sudden death such as massive heart attack or car accident or gun shot; and so, the notes slowly became this book.

There are three kinds of people who have read the pre-pub book, and there are three kinds of reactions.

1. Grief professionals. They are unanimous in serious praise for the book.

2. The newly bereaved. They find the book very, very helpful in sorting out their own emotional and mental needs and responses; they like comparing their experriences with mine in the book; they are grateful to me for having written it; it has been a valuable help to them.

3. Those who had been bereaved several years earlier and had grown some tough skin: they can't read the book. Friends read twenty pages, thirty, then quit. It throws them back into the emotional state they'd been in before; and of course, they don't want to become quivering lumps of open, exposed nerves again.

All groups love the Starfish theme: be like a starfish and grow new legs. There IS one funny part of the book: getting back in shape and trying to start dating again.

I am relieved that this book is finally out in the world where it can do some good; and I can turn to other interests in addition to helping the grieving.