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The Woman Puzzle
“Daddy. Wake up, Daddy!”
On the night before her eighth birthday, Anne Bergman calls out these words to her beloved father.
He never answers.
He never wakes up.
For the rest of her life, Anne is haunted by that moment in time and the nightmare that follows.
When her unstable, narcissistic mother, Irene, remarries, Anne is plunged further into darkness. Bernie is young, powerful, and lecherous, and desires his new teenage stepdaughter. Powerless against Bernie’s sexual assaults, Anne furtively seeks solace in the shadows and exists in constant fear. With no help forthcoming, Anne’s life is an open wound.
At fifteen, Anne is the adult in a house occupied by her mentally ill mother and her frightened, disturbed younger brother. Lost and defeated, Anne is a broken adolescent, attending to everyone’s needs except her own. Repeatedly tested by the people in her life, Anne compartmentalizes her brokenness as she struggles to retain her sanity. She is always just one puzzle piece away from falling apart.
Pregnant at nineteen, Anne flees into, and then out of, a doomed marriage. To save herself, she makes the difficult decision to leave her two children, as well as her husband. She journeys across the country, from the East Coast to the West Coast, seeking recovery and peace. Along the way, Anne enters into a significant relationship with a Vietnam vet whose struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder mirrors her own. Deep inside, she knows somewhere, somehow, she must move from victim to victor.
Can a broken woman accept her brokenness and move on?
On the night before her eighth birthday, Anne Bergman calls out these words to her beloved father.
He never answers.
He never wakes up.
For the rest of her life, Anne is haunted by that moment in time and the nightmare that follows.
When her unstable, narcissistic mother, Irene, remarries, Anne is plunged further into darkness. Bernie is young, powerful, and lecherous, and desires his new teenage stepdaughter. Powerless against Bernie’s sexual assaults, Anne furtively seeks solace in the shadows and exists in constant fear. With no help forthcoming, Anne’s life is an open wound.
At fifteen, Anne is the adult in a house occupied by her mentally ill mother and her frightened, disturbed younger brother. Lost and defeated, Anne is a broken adolescent, attending to everyone’s needs except her own. Repeatedly tested by the people in her life, Anne compartmentalizes her brokenness as she struggles to retain her sanity. She is always just one puzzle piece away from falling apart.
Pregnant at nineteen, Anne flees into, and then out of, a doomed marriage. To save herself, she makes the difficult decision to leave her two children, as well as her husband. She journeys across the country, from the East Coast to the West Coast, seeking recovery and peace. Along the way, Anne enters into a significant relationship with a Vietnam vet whose struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder mirrors her own. Deep inside, she knows somewhere, somehow, she must move from victim to victor.
Can a broken woman accept her brokenness and move on?
272 pages, Paperback
Published November 19, 2019
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 25, 2020
The descriptions stick with me — the author has given much time and care in crafting a story where the plot and characters are greatly enhanced by her attention to detail. The story follows 8-year-old Anne from her father’s untimely death, through the personal tragedies that befall her as dysfunction follows her life.
This was difficult for me to read, but the underlying skill Crandell demonstrates helped me get through, to where I could not put it down. A super read!!
This was difficult for me to read, but the underlying skill Crandell demonstrates helped me get through, to where I could not put it down. A super read!!
Displaying 1 of 1 review