: Isabella Synan
: My Mother and the Artist
: BookBaby
: 9798350977592
: My Mother and the Artist
: 1
: CHF 3.20
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 324
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
What complex interplay of life experiences drives a woman to cross boundaries and seek ecstasy in an S&M relationship, territory she doesn't recognize even when it seems all too familiar? Alexandra left home at eighteen because of her mother's bad behavior and terrible choices. When her mother passes away 30 years later, Alexandra finally reads her memoir and discovers how her mother, Margaret, became the willing sex slave of a famous artist.

Writing My Mother and the Artist under the pen name Isabella Synan, the author has a PhD in Public Policy. Her fiction explores the deeper, often darker, dimensions of intimate relationships. She has published in numerous literary journals. Her second novel will be published in 2025.

1

Alexandra:
The phone call

The worst thing she ever taught me: if you don’t know how you feel about someone, send a Hallmark. Standard, reliable and throwaway. I opened the folder of greeting cards from my file cabinet—one a year for the past thirty years. Even a piece of recycled paper with somebody else’s words on it was too close for comfort.

I didn’t want the distraction of Margaret as I worked in my office in the pink and yellow Painted Lady on Steiner Street. But I did feel a duty to acknowledge her birthday. After all, she gave birth to me. Maybe I should’ve sent a card onmy birthday, a reminder of the kid she never wanted. I glanced at the article in theChronicle that my secretary left on my desk: “Bay Area’s Most Powerful and Influential Women.” Me, Alexandra Lizska, CEO of a corporation that provides shelter for women who are victims of domestic abuse. Shelters where everything is peaceful and normal and nothing can hurt them. Something Margaret could’ve used decades ago.

With my thriving non-profit, I made the list alongside powerful women from Fortune 500 companies. They called me a social justice warrior. Saving women—but not too many—adds a little moral cachet next to reaping profits. Never mind that I was a tack on, the way the Violence Against Women Act slipped through a larger appropriations bill. You get the job done however you can. Let’s face it, battered women make everyone uncomfortable.

I earned my place at the top, doing everything from training volunteers for the Domestic Violence Hotline to hiring the professionals who provide counseling and transportation, parenting classes and employment assistance. So many hours at my desk in the bay window, overseeing the organization’s programs and operations to ensure their financial sustainability. I wasn’t the richest woman, but I sheltered hundreds of others from their abusers.

Margaret wasn’t one of them.

The article mentioned that I didn’t have a college degree. Margaret always said,Get an education. It’s the only way out. Way out of what? My mother was seldom right about anything. I worked hard, made good choices, got things done. Now there I was, CEO. And I didn’t get it with a college degree. Margaret had college degrees, and look where it got her.