Elizabeth Benedict on Books, Money, Hair, Mothers, Gifts & What Not

The world is full of memoirs and many of them are wonderful. One that's just out and needs your attention is Michael Downing's brilliant, harrowing Life with Sudden Death: A Tale of Moral Hazard and Medical Misadventure. Downing was the last of 9 children in a happy family in Western, MA, where everything changed when he was 3 and his father died suddenly. Part I is about Downing's childhood; Part II is about what happens when the same thing befalls one of his brothers: sudden death in the midst of a very full life. Turns out Downing has the same gene lying in wait for him too, which is where the "medical misadventure" comes in. If A Year of Magical Thinking is more your taste than Running with Scissors , I'll go out on the limb and say you'd like Life with Sudden Death , maybe as much as I did.

The book is available Oct. 27. The reviews are coming in from Oprah Magazine, Elle, AARP Magazine, Booklist, and many far-flung blogs: They like us, they really like us. Check the blog for updates: www.mentorsmusesmonsters.blogspot.com . And thanks for your interest.

ABC is the NPR-like national radio in Australia. Somehow they caught wind of T he Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers in August 2009. Take a look, take a listen:  www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2009/2646676.htm

PLEASE VISIT www.mentorsmusesmonsters.blogspot.com

I've not been much of a blogger for the last 1000 months - too busy writing, reading, and starting a new business (www.globaleditingusauk.com). I do have a book coming out in the fall (more on that when the cover art is finalized) but in the meantime, I'm branching out and here is my first music-ish review, on the very wonderful new site, The Rumpus (www.therumpus.net). http://therumpus.net/2009/04/a-classical-music-summit-with-an-element-of-speed-dating-thrown-in-the-youtube-symphony-orchestra-at-carnegie-hall/ Thanks for checking in. Liz

Two months before my parents married in 1950, my mother's brother was murdered in a hold-up in the liquor store he owned in West Hartford, Connecticut. The murder and its aftermath shaped their wedding (no music, because they were in mourning), their marriage (fraught with misery), and my life (one good time after another...). In recent years, after my parents died, I returned to the scene of the crime and spent a year learning and writing about the murder and its effects. My essay, "Murder One: Mad Dog Taborsky and Me," appears in the summer issue of Daedalus , a journal published by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. For a free copy of the essay, please email me at info@elizabethbenedict.com, and I will email you the essay - or buy the issue and/or the article on-line ($13 for the journal itself; $10 for the essay): http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/daed I also have an essay, "Why Not Say What Happened?" about my recollections of Elizabeth Hardw...

I've just started what I hope will be a monthly column on Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com/media/) called "Read Any Good Books Lately?" I'll interview 3-4 people in the know and in the news and post their reading lists and comments on them. Please join the conversation and add your own booklists in the comment section of Huff Po AND please write me if you are curious about what someone in the news is reading - but not Bush, Cheney, or that crowd, even as a joke. Let's be forward thinking and imagine a day (will that day ever come?) when they are no longer in charge. Anyway, write to me at: info@elizabethbenedict.com I'll do my best to track down your selections. Thanks. -EB