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Plunge!
An exceptional, deeply-moving memoir-a classic love story. In the late 1970s, a fragile thread linked a woman living on Park Avenue in Manhattan and a man in a guarded house in West Africa. "I love you very much he whispered softly across 7,000 miles of ocean and up the East River." Plunge! is a love story, exquisitely told. Sally was a New York career woman when David showed up in her life. Their first dinner date was July 13, 1977, the night of the New York Blackout. Six weeks later he told her he had accepted a job in Nigeria. After a romantic weekend at the Pierre Hotel, David left the city. "The noise of the engines was muffled through the window, and as the plane taxied to the runway, the sound faded away, like a love song drawing to a melancholy close." As David struggled to clear a jungle to build a paper mill in West Africa, Sally worked at her fast-paced job, occasionally flew private planes, and led the tenants of her Park Avenue apartment building into battle against her notorious landlord. Over the next nine months, they corresponded-openly, often with humor-and had three brief reunions: in Nigeria, London and New York. "Perhaps the distance that separated us, the lack of instant interaction, helped us both to communicate more thoughtfully, more honestly and even more passionately than we might have otherwise." "An amazing, beautiful literary accomplishment." - Carol Shaben, author of Into the Abyss "I can't remember the last book that affected me like Plunge! It's very moving and strong and honest and beautifully written. I was drawn in from the start-a gifted writer." - Dalia Pagani, author of Mercy Road "So well written and so compelling." - Louise Crowley, Program Director, Vermont College of Fine Arts, MFA in Writing
258 pages, Paperback
First published October 10, 2013
About the author
Sally Stiles
13 books6 followersSALLY STILES worked for fourteen years in New York City as an editor and writer and, later, as an advertising executive. In addition, she has published over a hundred magazine articles, several books, poetry and short stories. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts
After leaving New York, she and her husband, David, lived in Nigeria, Michigan, New Hampshire, Tanzania, British Columbia, Washington State and Virginia. She taught writing at Lebanon College in New Hampshire, at the Simon Fraser Writing and Publishing Program in Vancouver, B.C., and the Christopher Wren Society at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.
Her volunteer work has included, among many other things, running a women’s shelter; a craft store; a woman’s golf league; and investment club and an after-school enrichment program for primary school children in East Africa.
Sally Stiles’ latest books are ACROSS THE COVERED BRIDGE, a novel in 9 stories; LIKE A MASK DANCING, a Tanzanian Novel; PLUNGE!, a memoir (2013), and THE HAIKU GUIDE TO CRUISING (The Pacific Northwest).
After leaving New York, she and her husband, David, lived in Nigeria, Michigan, New Hampshire, Tanzania, British Columbia, Washington State and Virginia. She taught writing at Lebanon College in New Hampshire, at the Simon Fraser Writing and Publishing Program in Vancouver, B.C., and the Christopher Wren Society at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.
Her volunteer work has included, among many other things, running a women’s shelter; a craft store; a woman’s golf league; and investment club and an after-school enrichment program for primary school children in East Africa.
Sally Stiles’ latest books are ACROSS THE COVERED BRIDGE, a novel in 9 stories; LIKE A MASK DANCING, a Tanzanian Novel; PLUNGE!, a memoir (2013), and THE HAIKU GUIDE TO CRUISING (The Pacific Northwest).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 3, 2017
Such a beautiful love story. Reading it brought back all those feelings of new love and the excitement of endless possibilities. I especially loved the poems at the beginning of each chapter.
November 20, 2013
Plunge! is a loving portrait of a time and a passion. The time was just the other side of the great divide of the twentieth century, the gulf between typewriter and telex and celluloid photography and the onslaught of digitization. People wrote letters, which could take weeks to reach their mark. Placing a telephone call--when was the last time you did that?--was a hit-or-miss business, fueled by pocketfuls of change. Not an auspicious time for a long-distance relationship, we might think today. And miss the point completely. Distance adds its own spice to a love affair, and always has done.
Sally Stiles arrived in New York in the mid-1960s with potential as a writer and a taste for interesting men. The first she parlayed into a series of jobs in the magazine world, rising steadily through the ranks and writing about the outdoors and what people did in it. She traveled extensively, by motorbike and snowmobile and on “small feeder airlines hurtling through clear, starry nights to small-town airports in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Idaho …” She had fun, and when she threw an open-cockpit biplane around the sky fun blossomed into full-blown ecstasy.
Of the men, Plunge! focuses on three, and there’s not a fixer-upper among them. First was her father, “intelligent, forthright, a hero” and a hard act to follow, “though, like all men, he possessed some inconsistencies.” Away at war for the first three years of Sally’s life, he’s no sooner back than he’s off again, having fallen in love with another woman and becoming “the first of my loves to vanish into the ether like an azure balloon.”
The second is the mysterious PK, a charming Egyptian-Armenian with flecks of grey in his mustache, kind and lighthearted and twenty years her senior. His appearance in the book is fleeting, but he seems to overshadow it nevertheless. Perhaps it’s because he is there at the start, dying. The relationship lasted ten years and Sally says little about what they did together, setting the imagination free to follow them through the grand hotels of Europe, exotic ethnicity making PK as indistinct but unforgettable as Mr Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant.
The third of the trio was David Stiles, her beloved and loving husband, and when David too vanished into the ether she felt driven to write Plunge!. That affair and later marriage is the heart of this profoundly heartfelt book. It began as a classic New York love story with lunch at a French restaurant off Third Avenue, moved on by way of oysters and photo-shoots toward what looked like a pre-determined end. But fate intervened and sent David to Lagos to build a newsprint mill. The relationship relied on unreliable communications. Yet a series of flying visits added fuel to the fire. When Sally eventually went to Nigeria she saw the man she had fallen in love with at work, and fell even deeper.
Plunge!, punctuated by her poetry, is an account of their lives together, eloquent, vivid and moving. She wrote it to help her bear the unbearable. Only Sally knows how far she succeeded in that process. But there is no question that out of it she has produced a fine book.
Sally Stiles arrived in New York in the mid-1960s with potential as a writer and a taste for interesting men. The first she parlayed into a series of jobs in the magazine world, rising steadily through the ranks and writing about the outdoors and what people did in it. She traveled extensively, by motorbike and snowmobile and on “small feeder airlines hurtling through clear, starry nights to small-town airports in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Idaho …” She had fun, and when she threw an open-cockpit biplane around the sky fun blossomed into full-blown ecstasy.
Of the men, Plunge! focuses on three, and there’s not a fixer-upper among them. First was her father, “intelligent, forthright, a hero” and a hard act to follow, “though, like all men, he possessed some inconsistencies.” Away at war for the first three years of Sally’s life, he’s no sooner back than he’s off again, having fallen in love with another woman and becoming “the first of my loves to vanish into the ether like an azure balloon.”
The second is the mysterious PK, a charming Egyptian-Armenian with flecks of grey in his mustache, kind and lighthearted and twenty years her senior. His appearance in the book is fleeting, but he seems to overshadow it nevertheless. Perhaps it’s because he is there at the start, dying. The relationship lasted ten years and Sally says little about what they did together, setting the imagination free to follow them through the grand hotels of Europe, exotic ethnicity making PK as indistinct but unforgettable as Mr Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant.
The third of the trio was David Stiles, her beloved and loving husband, and when David too vanished into the ether she felt driven to write Plunge!. That affair and later marriage is the heart of this profoundly heartfelt book. It began as a classic New York love story with lunch at a French restaurant off Third Avenue, moved on by way of oysters and photo-shoots toward what looked like a pre-determined end. But fate intervened and sent David to Lagos to build a newsprint mill. The relationship relied on unreliable communications. Yet a series of flying visits added fuel to the fire. When Sally eventually went to Nigeria she saw the man she had fallen in love with at work, and fell even deeper.
Plunge!, punctuated by her poetry, is an account of their lives together, eloquent, vivid and moving. She wrote it to help her bear the unbearable. Only Sally knows how far she succeeded in that process. But there is no question that out of it she has produced a fine book.
January 11, 2014
Plunge! is a beautiful love story, but at its heart, Sally Stiles' memoir is a story of courage. Coming of age in the 1960s, the author dove head first into her work with various magazines and an ad agency. She drove snow mobiles in the Alaskan mountains and learned to fly a small plane. But the commitment of love required more courage than all of that put together. And when the author fell in love with David Stiles, she had to decide whether to give up the adventure and promise of a glamorous career for the man she thought she loved. But then he accepted a job in Lagos, Nigeria, she could barely communicate with him over the long distances. Could she trust his love and hers? What did she really want out of life? Could she learn to live in the tumultuous circumstances that were part of everyday life in Nigeria? Could she take the plunge?
Plunge! is a brave, truthful and poetic memoir. I enjoyed it from start to finish.
Plunge! is a brave, truthful and poetic memoir. I enjoyed it from start to finish.
November 17, 2013
Ah, romance, sometimes better than the love and marriage carriage! In this engaging memoir, the reader inhales the suspense of wondering if the Manhattan writer and ad executive living just off Park Avenue will sacrifice her job thrills and creature comforts to join her beckoning lover who is living through the political upheavals of 1970s Nigeria. Plunge! is a captivating story that will remind you of the mystery of love.
November 26, 2013
PLUNGE! is a poignant, moving tale of two people whose entangled lives ultimately lead to a shared life far richer than either of them imagined possible.
Beautifully written, and largely set against the backdrop of New York City in the 70s, the work offers a candid depiction of the inner life of the author as she struggles to make some of life's most difficult decisions. PLUNGE! is no ordinary memoir but a truly remarkable book.
Beautifully written, and largely set against the backdrop of New York City in the 70s, the work offers a candid depiction of the inner life of the author as she struggles to make some of life's most difficult decisions. PLUNGE! is no ordinary memoir but a truly remarkable book.
February 11, 2014
Loved it! Not my typical read, but a great story.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews