Elena: a novel

by Keith Adams

Elena Shaughnessy, a forty-nine-year-old maternity nurse, never expected to be single again or engaged to Michael Marino, the man whose heart she had broken thirty years ago. Her twin dreads—marrying Michael and not marrying him—keep her awake at night. She calls off the engagement, rebuffs his attempts to reconcile, and disregards his threats to reveal her most intimate secrets, thinking he wouldn’t defy the Sicilian code of silence his parents had ingrained in him. While coping with Michael’s bullying, her empty nest, and being forced to leave her home and garden near Pittsburgh, Elena finds herself irresistibly drawn to Patrick Jameson, a forty-seven-year-old psychiatrist who hasn’t been involved with a woman since his wife died six years ago. Patrick’s fear of betraying his late wife’s memory threatens to smother the fire he and Elena have set. When Michael exacts his revenge, Elena is ashamed, distraught, and intent on retaliation. She discovers that her ability to thrive in life and love hinges on whether she can find the courage to heal from the emotional wound that has haunted her for decades. “Elegantly written and full of unexpected twists, Elena brilliantly explores a woman’s journey through the shoals of midlife to self-acceptance. It amazes me that a male writer could so well capture the emotional shadings and essence of a woman.” —Megan Schofield Menzen – Director of Sales, MARY KAY INC.

456 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 22, 2016

About the author

My book, which was recently published by Chipmunka, has been called "… probably the most entertaining tale of mania you're likely to read". "Broken Whole: a California tale of Craziness, Creativity and Chaos" is available at all online booksellers in paperback, and on Kindle too (at Amazon.com)

I always wonder how an abnormally tall, working-class boy from the North Sea coast of England ended up living in a house in Hollywood with two dogs, and a partner, Benhur (really), who's a smarty-pants scientist at UCLA.

I do actually write for a living. Admittedly it's computer code, but I've always hoped to have my “real writing” - from experience - published. Yet I never thought my life to be eventful or interesting enough to merit a full memoir. That is, until I had a serious brush with insanity in 2006.

Heading towards a final diagnosis of bipolar disorder, I had a manic episode of truly heroic proportions. At one point, I thought I'd be a gay superstar / epochal intellectual / latter day Messiah all rolled into one. Quite obviously, I became none of those things, but I did survive the inevitable crash to tell the tale in my memoir, which recounts the creativity, the great ideas, the not so great ideas, the fist-fights, and one impersonation of the Anti-Christ while in jail overnight courtesy of the LAPD.

If you like watching train crashes in slow motion, my memoir is the book for you. But it's also an unlikely story of growth through disaster. While I would never wish this disorder on anybody, I became a better, stronger person through it all, and my relationship with my partner became embedded in rock. So I like to think the book offers hope to anybody in the midst of similar trials and tribulations.

And that’s also the underlying reason I’ve kept a blog these last few years, writing not just about my own little passions (writing – obviously, literature, cosmology, photography, consciousness … it’s a long list) in life, but also about my experience of depression, and mania. Nothing touches me more than when somebody writes me and tells me that my attempt at bearing the soul of mental illness has made them feel understood, and less alone.

All the best, Keith Adams

Reviews

[Chris Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book-could not stop reading.we need a continued story