Spotlight on Words for Patty Jo

I’m happy to welcome writer and artist Jill Arlene Culiner. Today, Arlene shares her new release, Words for Patty Jo.

Blurb

A passion for books creates a lasting bond between teenage Patty Jo and David, but small-town prejudice and social differences doom their romance.

After a summer of reading and falling in love, David heads for university, foreign adventure, and a dazzling career; Patty Jo marries slick, over-confident Don Ried.

Yet plans can go horribly wrong. The victim of her violent husband, Patty Jo abandons her home and children to live on the streets of Toronto. David, a high-ranking executive in Paris, is dismayed by the superficiality of corporate success.

Forty years later, Patty Jo and David meet again. Both have defied society; both have fulfilled their dreams. And what if first love was the right one after all, and destiny has the last word?

Excerpt

“I’ve had two husbands, but neither was what people call a great love.” As soon as the words are out, she regrets them. They smack of failure, and she has betrayed an honorable dead man. The two women at the table are startled (perhaps secretly gleeful). Hadn’t she been the adored wife of a respected judge? Isn’t she a well-off widow, owner of a fine brick Victorian house, a woman with an impressive career behind her? What unsightly cracks has she just exposed?

It’s the fault of four glasses of white wine and the anticipation of what morning will bring. Or is it this rare evening of confidences, the conjuring up of vanished sweethearts and irrecoverable youth?

Secretive, she listened to the other women’s stories of faded romances, lost chances, marriages gone sour, but didn’t mention her many lovers. Yet, she remembers them fondly, for time affords indulgence (although, surely, she has forgotten some, and others were less than agreeable). But isn’t this a sign of aging—remembering positive things, blocking out the negative, showing tolerance?

The others want more. How to divert their curiosity? What can she give them? Not the truth, for that might jinx her prospects (the superstitious thought almost makes her smile). Would they, twenty years her junior, find ridiculous the romantic dreams of a silver-haired woman in her seventies?

Author Bio and Links

Writer, artist, and teller of tall tales, Jill (J.) Arlene Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived on the Great Hungarian Plain, in a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave dwelling, and a haunted house on the English moors. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village where she protects spiders, snakes, and weeds. She delights in hearing any nasty, funny, ridiculous, or romantic story, and when she can’t uncover gossip, she makes it up.

She has won the Tanenbaum Prize in Canadian Jewish History, the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, was shortlisted for the Foreword Magazine Prize, and twice for the Page Turner Awards.

Giveaway

Jill Arlene Culiner will award a $10 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly selected winner. Find out more here.

Follow Jill on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

An unlikely couple from opposite sides of the tracks, Patty Jo and David first meet as teenagers in the 1960s. Despite their different upbringings, they bond over books and fall passionately in love during an unforgettable summer. Afterward, they are forced to part ways: David heads for university and a life of privilege while Patty Jo quits school and starts waitressing.

In the decades that follow, Ms. Culiner traces their diverging lives with great care and insight. David drifts into the life prescribed for him and achieves what appears to be success—a career, a marriage, stability—yet beneath the surface lies a growing discontent.

Patty Jo faces a harsher path. Her marriage to a charming but abusive salesman erodes her self-esteem as her sons bear witness to the indignities she endures. Her eventual escape to Toronto is an act of survival, an attempt to reclaim what has been suppressed for too long. Living on the margins of society, she experiments with theater while meeting and connecting with a colorful cast of characters. Among them is a kind, older gentleman who alters the trajectory of her life.

Ms. Culiner’s writing style is both lyrical and precise, rich with vivid imagery that brings emotional depth to the narrative. Patty Jo and David emerge as fully developed, three-dimensional characters, flawed and easily recognizable. They do not simply inhabit the story; they stay with us long after we turn the final page.

A compelling and beautifully written story that gently dismantles romantic illusions while bringing a hard-won sense of closure.

Highly recommended!