I’ve gone through family photos and picked those which best illustrate stories I relate in my memoir. If you have read Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, you will recognize scenes and people (and santons and a stuffed animal) from the book. I especially love the photos of my father reading while at the sanatorium and of Anne-Marie while on a trip to India. The book trailer at the very bottom also holds some images which will be recognizable to readers, including my joy at finding the perfect — HUGE — Christmas tree.
The Three Sisters
The Three Sisters
And again, the three sisters
Jack and his windsurfer
Traveling through Poland
Our Christmas Play
My father reading to us on Christmas Eve
My mother's santons
I am holding Lion (trying to keep him quiet)
Bellport
Bellport
Anne-Marie sailing to Fire Island
Anne-Marie playing Scrabble with the boys
Meredith, Me, Peter
A cookie so hard it had to be made into a tree ornament
On the roof of Anne Beattie's apartment
On the roof of Anne Beattie's apartment
My father reading on the porch of the sanatorium at Eupen
Anne-Marie in India
2 Responses to Photo Gallery for Tolstoy and the Purple Chair
I just finished reading your memoir. Read the blurb in O magazine and had to wait until yesterday to purchase it.
Thank you. I am always drawn to books about enduring grief. Having lost my son seven years ago, one of the first things I did was start to read “grief books”. I too am a voracious reader. I will tell you that the only one I really found helpful was A GRACE DISGUISED by Gerald Sitser.
Yours is beautiful and compelling as is your honest love for Anne Marie.
Thank you for taking the journey and sharing it so eloquently.
Thank you for your email. I am so sorry for your loss. I hope that my book reaffirmed what you must know, that memories are a comfort and a promise, of joys always to be remembered and joys still to come. Thank you again. Read on!