Ida Mae Glick, a critically acclaimed filmmaker, has lived and taught in the small town of Willow Bend, New York for five years without drawing attention to her troubled past. But when she suffers a near fatal heart attack, the result of trying to live on the same meager rations as a group of homeless people she is filming, she winds up in intensive care under the scrutiny of a neurotic psychiatrist who believes she's unstable. To make matters worse, her mother's ghost has appeared at her bedside with old gripes, and her angry, estranged identical twin, Lisa, is heading toward town intent on having her committed. Ida Mae is desperate to escape with her freedom intact, but knows she'll have to get past her psychiatrist first. The only question is, can she? Shadows and Ghosts is Ida Mae's tale of artistic passion, fierce sibling rivalry, failed love affairs, substance abuse, and the magical redemptive power of cinema.
Barbara Froman is a writer and musician whose early love of sound led to study at the Juilliard School’s Preparatory Division. She went on to receive degrees in Music Composition from Ithaca College and Northwestern University, and a few career twists and publications later, became the Director of Mundelein College’s Creative Writing Program. She has taught Literature and Creative Writing at National-Louis University, where she also acted as a consultant to National’s graduate program in Written Communication. She has written fiction, non-fiction, drama, and poetry, placed in screenwriting competitions, was nominated for a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Fringe, and acted as Assistant Editor on the anthology, (AFTER)life: Poems and Stories of the Dead (published by Purple Passion Press. When she's not writing, she's practicing, composing, reading, or watching movies. You can find her on Twitter, or on her web site at: http://barbarafroman.wordpress.com
This is an important discovery. After a month of living as the subjects of her film, Ida Mae begins to understand the alienating nature of homelessness.
Book Excerpt
Shadows and Ghosts
If only she knew the truth. In four weeks I had lost a lot of weight. I not only looked thin, I looked sick, and people whispered loudly about my health whenever they passed me in the hall. But there was more. I had become so guilt-ridden that I abandoned all the luxuries I once thought so necessary for my survival, such as beds and television sets and cosmetics. These became trifles alongside the basic needs for food and shelter and human contact, the last of which became scarcer the dirtier I got. Sadly, but not surprisingly, I discovered how invisible I could be in clothing I’d worn for a week. I discovered how blatantly nasty strangers could be when I looked disoriented or confused by hunger or bent over by sleeping on a hard floor night after night. And I discovered how much facial hair could really grow on me without the benefit of regular tweezing.
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