Carol Lee Lorenzo

Sleeping In Public Carol Lee Lorenzo

A successful runaway at 15, Marsha lives free of her past in NYC and the mountains of upstate New York. She earns a living as an illustrator of botanicals but her passion is a game of 'catch and release' with men, luring them into affairs only to leave them. Now she finds herself caught in the lure of a weatherman, a storm chaser of sorts, who pursues her wildly unpredictable moods. With an unexpected call, she escapes her new life to return to her old home, to her mother, a florist, who cuts the living plants to present their ephemeral beauty. Now her mother's life is being cut short, her only wish is that her strong willed daughter keep her alive. Marsha struggles to maintain her balance between who she has become and the world she ran away from, the treacherous cliffs of her childhood home. With the weatherman still in pursuit, a steady pressure on the edges, Marsha learns to care for her mother, who remains aloof but increasingly dependent. Then a man appears who claims to be Marsha's father, setting in motion events that display the fragile beauty of love and its destructive power. REVIEW: Sleeping In Public moves gracefully through time and space, unpredictable as weather. It pieces together the story of Marsha, a tormented young woman who has created a life for herself in the New York theater world after fleeing an abusive home. Marsha has settled into a small apartment and has settled on a single lover when an unexpected call summons her back to her childhood home. As the novel unfolds, we witness birth, childhood, love, betrayal and death. The detail is so fine we see up close what's important. The characters are full and complex and include Dog, a fabulously rendered animal with a protective streak. Carol Lee Lorenzo is at the top of her game with keen insights into everything from drawing in the dark with oil-based pastels, to choosing the right man, to caring for a dying parent, to bathing an untouchable stray dog. Every scene is loaded with new and often surprising views of the world that stick with the reader long after reaching the end. - Joe Coberly, author and Atlanta native.