Forgetting Tommie

by Paula Paul

Dara had known for a long time that there was something wrong with Tommie. Meg knew as well. They’d seen the first signs of it about a year ago, and lately things appeared to be getting worse. Long-buried secrets threaten to tear apart friendships and family in Paula Paul’s poignant new novel, Forgetting Tommie . Dara thought nothing would ever change between herself and her two best friends, Meg and Tommie. Now retired, the three women have been incredibly close for decades. But Tommie’s rapid descent into early onset dementia forces Dara and Meg to make difficult decisions concerning her care, especially since Tommie’s only daughter passed away years earlier. Dara’s future—and past—is thrown into questions, however, when she discovers that the father of Tommie’s deceased daughter is none other than Dara’s own husband. Reeling at the magnitude of their betrayal, Dara flees to Las Vegas in a desperate effort to clear her head. There she meets a woman who, despite their differences, helps show Dara what she must do. Can Dara overcome her anger and forgive a woman who is rapidly losing her grip on reality? And will she ever be able to forgive her cheating husband?

166 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2014

About the author

Paula Paul writes novels that touch the heart and challenge the mind. She has published 25 novels, some with major New York publishers and some with small presses. They include historical fiction, mysteries, YA and literary novels.

She is a native of Texas. She wasn't really born in Lubbock, as her profile info states. She was actually born outside of Lubbock on her grandparents' farm. She grew up on a ranch about 80 miles from where she was born and attended a country school where she graduated as valedictorian.

She has a degree in journalism and worked for several years as a print journalist, winning a number of state and national awards. She has also won national awards for her novels.

Reviews

[Carol Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant novel about aging, loss, and friendship, from a Texas author whose writing is tough, gritty, absolutely unsentimental and totally addictive.

Dara was always the good girl in her small Texas town. Tommie was the dreamer, and Meg was the enforcer. But when Tommie is diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, the lives of all three women are changed in ways no one could have foreseen.

Paula Paul has always been the kind of writer who refuses to be pigeon holed. Back in the early nineties, she had a taste of mainstream success with A BAD GIRL'S MONEY, a novel of the Texas oil boom that was marketed as a conventional historical romance. The only problem was, the heroine was a tough Texas girl who broke every rule in the book for romance novel heroines. Alexis slept with a man twice her age, broke up his marriage, went into the oil business with him, broke with her stuffy rich family -- and all of that without a word of apology or excuse to God or man.

Dara in this book is not quite as adventurous -- but when her best friend Tommie reveals a certain unimaginable secret from their early married days (actually not the most shocking secret, if you've ever watched a soap opera or listened to country music) the prim and proper librarian goes on a road trip to Las Vegas that has heart-breaking, sidesplitting, liberating, and at times very touching results.

It amazes me that a book of this high quality had to be self-published. I've read novels by "respectable" literary authors like Anna Quindlen and Mary Gordon (both east coast, Barnard girls, natch!) that weren't half as funny, candid, well written or insightful.

I would recommend FORGETTING TOMMIE to anyone who enjoys novels about women, friendship, mid life crisis, breaking loose from conventional roles and suffocating social pressures, or just stories about personal growth.