Resting Place, A Graveside Diary by Pamela Little, Nonfiction / Personal Memoir, Review
Demographic: Women – divorced, overeaters, or bipolar
Pamela Little’s writing career began in the fifth grade when she won The Evans Award for Drama for a play she wrote overnight titled The Case of the Missing Watch.
She went on to win two American Pen Women prizes for creative writing in high school. While a college student, Pamela earned recognition from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation and the Annual Hemingway Days Festival for her newspaper journalism.
As a professional, Pamela wrote the “Family Matters” column for five years at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, managed communications for a tourism agency, attended the Betty Ford Center‘s Professionals in Residence program on scholarship, and worked for a Montessori school. She also received the Gannett Award for Best Enterprise Reporting and numerous accolades from the Society of Professional Journalists.
As a writing coach, Pamela helps people organize their journal collections and publish their diaries. Through her ministry Soul Custody, she creates and conducts Marriage Memorial Services for divorced families. Pamela is currently at work on a series of daily meditation books to help parents after divorce. The Resting Place, A Graveside Diary, is her first book.
Visit Pamela Little at http://www.restingplaceonline.com
My Thoughts:
If you asked me my first thoughts on the book, I would say it is a strange book. It’s different from anything I’ve read so far, and I’ve read a lot of books. It is not a book that can be rushed through – I am a fast reader and I stress – this book cannot be read fast. Not that you can’t speed read it, I guess you could. It’s a little hard to explain other than saying it is a slow read. The words will not allow you to read it quickly.
Pamela Little has experienced a lot in her life and with The Resting Place, takes the reader on her journey to find her resting place while still alive. She buys a cemetery plot and goes to her final resting place each day to write and meditate on her life.
Pamela Little felt that in order to tackle her “living” life, she needed to begin to assess her life from death moving backward. We all have darkness in our lives, some more than others because of different struggles. Pamela Little suffers with some pretty powerful life-altering darknesses which include “alcoholism, food addiction, bipolar disorder, and her self-diagnosed “post-divorce destruction disorder.” Just one of these would topple most people.
In the book, she takes us through her struggles and how she finally finds her resting place within herself. I identified with her “post-divorce destruction disorder” having been through a traumatic divorce and alienation of children. I understand her search to find that resting place. It is a long journey that ends back where you start – within yourself.
Pamela Little is blunt, honest, and sometimes a little crazy in her memoir. She decides to view life from death’s view in an effort to live life to its fullest. It is a spiritual journey. After reading this book, I think I understand the journey bi-polar sufferers go through and how it affects their outlook on life. While I would describe the book as a little strange, it is a good book. I’m giving The Resting Place four stars.
I cry now because I care so deeply about myself, maybe as equally as I care for them (daughters) now. I am so worth living for! I have missed myself while I was dead. I can breathe now. Easily. Finally, I can rest in peace (while alive.)
Pamela Little says her mission is to “help people see things from different perspectives” and she does in her half humorous, half insightful voice in her new memoir The Resting Place: A Graveside Diary. Yes, graveside. And not the grave of a dearly departed but her own grave that she will eventually call home. Her journal entries reveal her life–her strengths, her weaknesses–through deep reflection with a story arc that grabs the reader by the hand and takes her along for the journey.- Matilda Butler, award-winning author and co-founder of WomensMemoirs.com
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Filed under: Book Reviews, Books, Non-Fiction Tagged: Academic institution, Amanda Bynes, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Bipolar disorder, Kidney, List of people with bipolar disorder, Mental disorder, Nephropathy, Pamela Little, Renal function, Society of Professional Journalists, The Resting Place
