Edelstein - Lifesaving for beginners: a memoir

More praise for

Lifesaving for Beginners

In this stunningly eloquent memoir, Edelstein grieves for her mothers drowning to unearth an even deeper griefthe one for her brother who killed himself fifteen years before. In what can be the sometimes garrote of family (as well as its absolute joys) alongside a legacy of mental illness, Lifesaving for Beginners is a graceful GPS for finding your safe shore, no matter how distant it seems.

CAROLINE LEAVITT,
New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World

Loss, grief, and the proof of love are at stake in this poignant and penetrating memoir of a daughters quest to understand her elusive mother, the suicide of her beloved brother, and the mystery at the heart of the will to live.

JILL BIALOSKY,
author of History of a Suicide: My Sisters Unfinished life

As if in the eye of a hurricane, Anne Edelstein writes courageously about the deaths that swirl about her. Calm, clear, moving and oh-so poignant, Lifesaving for Beginners is a breathtaking portrait of our fruitless efforts to shield each other from the most painful aspects of life. Her book points in another direction and it is indeed a lifesaver.

MARK EPSTEIN,
author of The Trauma of Everyday Life and Going to Pieces without Falling Apart

Anne Edelsteins remarkable debut is an unforgettableand unputdownableportrait of a singular American family. Reminiscent of Vivian Gornicks Fierce Attachments and Daphne Merkins This Close to Happy, this powerful memoir reads like a conversation with your kindest, funniest, most incisive friend.

JOANNA RAKOFF,
author of My Salinger Year and A Fortunate Age

Anne Edelstein maps the tragic legacy of her brothers suicide and her mothers accidental death with grace and fortitude, shedding light on the darkest of secrets. In the quotidian domain of family life, she finds the simple poetry of love and forgiveness. Lifesaving for Beginners is a soaring tribute to the ties that bind us, what makes us whole as human beings.

ANNE LANDSMAN,
author of The Devils Chimney and The Rowing Lesson

Lifesaving for Beginners

Copyright 2017 by Anne Edelstein

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior writt en permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.

Gemini [excerpt 6.1] from The First Four Books of Poems. Copyright 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1985, 1995 by Louise Glck. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Rose in the Garden copyright Karla Bonoff. Reprinted by permission of Karla Bonoff. All rights reserved.

Note: Some names and certain identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals described.

Book design by Selena Trager

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Edelstein, Anne author.

Title: Lifesaving for beginners : a memoir / by Anne Edelstein.

Description: First edition. | Pasadena, CA : Red Hen Press, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017011415 | ISBN 9781597096058 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781597095792 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Edelstein, Anne. | Edelstein, AnneFamily. | Book editorsUnited StatesBiography. | Literary agentsUnited-StatesBiography. Classification: LCC PN149.9.E44 A3 2017 | DDC 818/.603 [B]dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011415

The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Aff airs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Aff airs, the Audrey & Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Amazon Literary Partnership, and the Sherwood Foundation partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition

Published by Red Hen Press

www.redhen.org

Acknowledgments

My profound gratitude is for my mother, who brought me into this world, for Danny, who was not here long enough, and for all of my family for their love. I thank Andrea Valeria for telling me I would write this book, and the friends who have read it along the way, especially Andrea Chapin, and Becky Saletan, Deb Futter, David Rakoff, Krista Ingebretson, Kathleen Finneran, Sarah Cohen, and Liel Leibovitz. I thank my friend and agent, Gail Hochman, whose wise words and indefatigable spirit allowed this book to be; and I thank Kate Gale and the folks at Red Hen for publishing it! My deepest appreciation goes to Eli and Eva, for their perpetual inspiration and beauty, and beyond all to Roy, who has read more versions of this memoir than anyone, and who is always at my side.

For Eli and Eva

There is a soul in me

It is asking

to be given its body

Louise Glck, Gemini

... it is always the same truth: love must wait for wounds to heal. It is the waiting we must do for each other, not with a sense of mercy, or in judgment, but as if forgiveness were a rendezvous.

Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault

T he Lily Pond is almost too large to qualify as a pond, nearly a mile-long swim all the way to the other side and back. Today is as perfect as it gets, the sun sparkling on the tiny waves of current. I am smiling and relaxed as I reach my long-swim destination of the big yellow rock. I feel so lucky to be in this beautiful place in Maine, so isolated and so human, so far away from the everyday world of the other eleven months of the year.

There can be challenges in the pond. And theres definitely a tinge of the preciousness of life, if not actual danger, out there swimming alone with nothing but the beauty of the water, the sky and the rocks and trees surrounding you. This summer someone told me that there was some bad garbage dumped at the ponds far edge. There is something about that end of the pond thats eerie. When I heard the tale about the bad garbage, even though I never did find out exactly what that was, I was a little relieved never to have actually touched the other bank. But weve been coming here for four summers now, and each year the distance of my swim reaches closer to the far end of the pond.

Sometimes on the way back, the surface gets surprisingly choppy, to the point that I realize how strong my body needs to be to swim through the current. Every once in a while two swimmers pass each other in the water. Once, a teenage boy actually asked me if I wanted to race.

One day last week, about halfway through my swim to the yellow rock, there was a huge bird perched up high in a tree. It looked like a hawk, but with the long beak of a heron. It really looked like a hawk when it spread its wings and flew across the pond above me. I kept on swimming, telling myself that I knew that birds didnt attack people. And then it flew back over me again, returning to its original perch. As I envisioned my birds-eye mass of dark, curly hair bobbing up and down in the water, I found myself frantically doing the dog paddle, undecidedly lurching from one direction to the other, trying to figure out which way to go. I finally got my bearings and decided to turn back, still reluctant about shifting course part-way through. With the image of my children playing happily on the shore firmly pressed into my mind, I swam as quickly as I could.