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Off the Leash
Off the Leash: How My Dog Inspired Me to Quit My Job, Pack My Car, and Take a Road Trip Across America to Reclaim My Life by Jean Ellen Whatley
Paperback, 238 pages
Published September 26th 2012 by Blank Slate Press
Off the Leash: How My Dog Inspired Me to Quit My Job, Pack My Car, and Take a Road Trip Across America to Reclaim My Life by Jean Ellen Whatley
Paperback, 238 pages
Published September 26th 2012 by Blank Slate Press
In this memoir about having the courage to break free from thinking one’s life is predestined to be hard, sad, or screw up, Jean Ellen Whatley and her dog Libby set out from St. Louis and drive nearly 9,000 miles across America to revive her life.
With a family history of secrets and betrayals, addiction and abuse, survivor solidarity and abiding love, Whatley frees herself from the traps of the past. Her ex-husband got out of prison just as she was getting her last kid through college, her mother and two brothers recently died, and she has another brother who she has never seen, but needs to find.
What unfolds on her odyssey is nothing short of life-changing—aided and abetted by strangers on the highway, long-lost family members, and the ever-present comfort of Libby, who reminds her to always live in the moment.
With a family history of secrets and betrayals, addiction and abuse, survivor solidarity and abiding love, Whatley frees herself from the traps of the past. Her ex-husband got out of prison just as she was getting her last kid through college, her mother and two brothers recently died, and she has another brother who she has never seen, but needs to find.
What unfolds on her odyssey is nothing short of life-changing—aided and abetted by strangers on the highway, long-lost family members, and the ever-present comfort of Libby, who reminds her to always live in the moment.
About the author
Subscribing to the notion that we’re all more alike than different, Jean Ellen Whatley feels privileged in her self-appointed role of cockeyed purveyor of our human condition. She’s both perceptive and profuse, sometimes profound, rarely punctual and given to alliteration.
Jean Ellen Whatley is an Emmy Award-winning journalist cum author who’s been published on Salon.com, More.com, SheWrites.com and, at the low ebb of her writing career, as the Bedding Columnist for Furniture Retailer Magazine.
Jean has been a guest columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Winston-Salem Journal and the Albuquerque Tribune and has been featured as guest host on “The Evening Special” on KMOX (CBS) radio in St. Louis.
Jean’s broadcast career spans nearly twenty years and several diverse regions of the country. She has been a news reporter and anchor in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Winston-Salem/Greensboro, North Carolina; and St. Louis, MO. Her reporting has been featured on CNN and ABC.
Bridging the gap between reporting news and wrangling reporters, Jean has also served as Press Secretary to a New Mexico Attorney General, a Governor of Missouri and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Excerpts from her popular blog, A Woman With a Past: The Post-Apocalyptic Approach to Men, earned “Editor’s Picks” on Open Salon and high praise from many people who are not even members of her family.
Jean’s the proud parent of four, remarkably well-adjusted, mostly-grown kids and two high-maintenance mutts who reside with her in St. Louis, the dogs, that is. In her spare time, she deletes names of former boyfriends from her cell phone and composes pithy six-word memoirs in her head.
“It was all material. Some good.”
Connect with Jean
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Thanks so much for the giveaway! This book looks great!
ReplyDeleteYou are so welcome! Thanks for entering and good luck!
DeleteThis sounds so interesting. I love memoirs from people that have done amazing things!
ReplyDeleteI got this book from a friend so I haven't read it but it does sound interesting. Good luck!
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