An Untenable Fragrance of Violets: A Walk In the Woods (the Rest of the Story)

Ah, faithful reader, if you have made your way through the trilogy of my autobiography and are still here, you will find that I am continuing my story in this fourth volume. This last is about the ramifications of all that came before as I continue my journey living here in East Hampton; I promise that this is the end of this saga, and if you have not read the first three, I am hoping that this book is able to stand on its own. The first three volumes encompass two failed marriages and finally the third successful one. I have tried to contain the tale within the actual task that is the writing of this memoir. The story is entwined with complicated memories of my children peppered by loss, retribution and alienation; its background is my art and art career and the ongoing feminist movement, my search for spiritual awareness, success, peace and true love. The first volume begins as I await my grand seventieth birthday celebration a reunion with my seven children that never happens; it proceeds to describe my childhood in the Bronx and Queens in New York in the forties and fifties, meeting Steve Heffner, through the end of my first marriage to him in the sixties; when the marriage became intolerable to me, I forced the issue, probably in some regard a good choice - too little too late - however the divorce triggered undeniably awful events. Book II is about my second marriage, to Eddie Cortes in Puerto Rico towards the end of the Age of Aquarius, and the resulting fallout. The first two books tell of these marriages and the massive, obscene custody battle that ensued after my divorce from Steve and subsequent marriage to Eddie, the damage that was done to the children and to me not only by Steve and the custody conflict but by the bizarre seemingly invisible machinations that surrounded it and the spreading chasm between mother and child; Steve is the father of my first six children, Eddie is the father of the seventh and youngest. The third book tells about survival and a new beginning with Joe Ferrante, my third and forever husband. And yet in the midst of joy and success, inevitable stumbling blocks and choices continue to present themselves, their inescapable consequences continue to accumulate and become lost in a forlorn and aimless mathematical progression leading to nowhere but catastrophe. I try to describe the series of books with a metaphor; the writing of the story is like a clothesline, and the different parts of this saga hang on it like so many handkerchiefs and pieces of underwear. I begin with a momentous birthday and work backwards, following the thread of the effort to complete this story of dreams and successes, loss and alienation...

Author: Lynne Heffner Ferrante

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Publication Date: May 23, 2013

Number of Pages: 538 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: 1475262973

ISBN-13: 9781475262971