here - Throw Me the Rope

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The Silent
and the Lost
Abu Zubair
(Pacific Breeze Publishers)
This Costa
Mesa author’s
first novel spans
two generations, and two
continents. It’s
set during the
1971 political
clashes of East
Pakistan and the
nine months of
the Bangladesh
War of Independence. Zubair sees
the past through the eyes of a survivor searching for his roots. Love and
betrayal, history, and fiction blend
as the family’s struggle for a future
in America is overshadowed by a
dark past that includes genocide. An
impressive and richly detailed book.
Sex, Love and
Your Personality
Mona Coates and Judith Searle
(Therapy Options Press)
Coates, a Huntington Beachbased sex
therapist, uses
54 cases from
her 35 years of
counseling to
describe sexual problems
and love issues
for each personality type.
By understanding yourself, you
can predict which intimate relationships will endure, says Coates.
There’s a wow factor at work here as
you rate yourself and your choices.
It’s fun—and maybe it works.
A
Mother’s Memoir
A Newport Beach writer, above, chronicles her daughter’s slide
into addiction, her recovery, and her inexplicable and premature
death.—Jane Glenn Haas
“She had it all—beauty, intelligence, compassion, courage, generosity, integrity, love, and
family—and, yet, it was taken away within
minutes.” ¶ Lynda Zussman of Newport
Beach writes these words about her daughter, Lauren, who collapsed and died at 26
while jogging in New York’s Central Park on
Memorial Day 2008. Her pride, her love, her
Throw Me the Rope devastation are simply, powerfully expressed.
After reading this book you’ll understand
Lynda Zussman
(Self-Published)
both the author’s (Continued on Page 38)
36 | Ora nge C o a st | November 2011
Marching
Through Georgia
Jack Martin
(Fireship Press)
This is the
third in the
Alphonso Clay
Civil War mystery series, and
another winner from this
Irvine author.
Gen. William
Tecumseh
Sherman fears
there’s a traitor in the Union Army
as he mounts an attack. It takes Maj.
Clay, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s official
troubleshooter, to identify the fictional murderer and Confederate
spy. There’s a little sex, and a lot of
intrigue, history, and fun reading.
p hotograp h by
Melissa Valladares
Coast Lines » books
loss, as well as why she believes the world
lost more than just her daughter.
Lauren was a Ford Agency model. “At
the top of her career,” her mother says of
the New York University student who, on
the day she died, was eight years sober, and
engaged. “She had a great love of life. She
had overcome a lot of demons and she was
… ready to start a new career as a life coach
for others with addiction problems.”
Instead, she lay on a Central Park sidewalk, apparently felled by heart failure
and near death—just as she was on the
eve of another Memorial Day, eight years
earlier, when she was face-down outside a
Lake Havasu City bar after a bout of binge
drinking. That stumble in the Arizona
river town was a low point that spurred
her to pursue treatment.
Lauren was not at all like her younger
sister, Ashlie, who was popular with other
students and teachers. Lauren had been
drinking excessively since she was 15, and
smoking marijuana and taking drugs. “I
can’t seem to stop,” her mother recalls her
saying. “I seem to want more and more,
when my friends are able to stop.”
One counselor suggested that her parents write the then-18-year-old Lauren a
letter stating what they wouldn’t tolerate.
If she wanted to remain at home, she had
to acknowledge she’d been making bad
decisions: “We will not enable you to continue partying, running around all night,
sleeping all day … . You are disrespectful
to us.” Follow our rules, they told her, or
move out and pay your own expenses.
“We love you,” they wrote, “but we will
not enable you to kill yourself.”
On July 5, 2000, Lauren joined a 12-step
program, which her mother writes, “saves
her life, but it is hell.”
Lauren’s 21st birthday was a turning
point. She decided to try a modeling career
in New York—and she stayed sober. Zussman recounts their conversations, and
includes letters from her daughter in the
book. Lauren’s growing maturity is obvious: “Sometimes I feel so scared—scared
of losing control and ultimately dying,
which is the ultimate loss of control.”
Days before her death, Lauren sent
Zussman a Mother’s Day greeting expressing her love and gratitude. But just a few
38 | Ora nge C o a st | November 2011
weeks earlier, she’d told her mother she
didn’t expect a long life. “The year is
2008,” Zussman writes. “Lauren had been
sober for eight years … . Lauren always
had an infatuation with the number eight
because it represented infinity.”
The author, a former Newport Harbor
High School teacher, isn’t a professional
writer. But her honesty elevates this book,
especially for parents who have struggled
helping children with addiction problems. She spares little in describing her
daughter’s depression, withdrawal, and
isolation. But she also writes with pride
about Lauren’s successes.
Not only does Zussman reveal her
daughter’s miseries and triumphs, but
also her own struggles as she reflects
on her role as mother and mentor. “Millions of parents have children that fall
down. I will always rejoice that I was
able to see her become the highest being
she could be.”
Jane Glenn Haas is a longtime
Orange County journalist and
Orange Coast’s literary critic.