Book Launch and First Blog Review of Liberating Lomie

In her third memoir, Liberating Lomie, Furlong revisits her childhood memories from the vantage of a mother-daughter relationship. And that bond, like Amish culture, is complicated. ~Sabrina R Völz, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany

Today is launch day for Liberating Lomie: Memoir of an Amish Childhood. It has finally arrived! I picked up the books from the local printer today, which is quite exciting. I really like how they came out, and I hope you will also.

The offer for a free copy of Bonnet Strings with the first ten orders is still good for several readers.

Sabrina Völz at Leuphana University in Germany has published a wonderful review of Liberating Lomie on The American Studies Blog. She touches on the points that are important to my writing in general, and to Liberating Lomie specifically. She writes, “Why I Left the Amish was one of the first memoirs written by a former Amish woman that provided unfettered perspectives on the Amish.” I realize that Professor Völz is right. There are many women who have emerged from The Plain People who are raising awareness about abuses among the Amish. In a future blog post I will be more specific about these. But when Why I Left the Amish was published in 2011, there was no other memoir written by a former Amish person that addressed sexual abuse. Ruth Irene Garrett’s book, Crossing Over addressed physical abuse, and that was the only other memoir written by a former Amish person at the time. There are now numerous memoirs written by former Amish men and women and most of them address abuse issues, but that was not the case at the time when my first book was published.

This review by Professor Völz gets at the heart of Liberating Lomie. I hope you’ll click over to The American Studies Blog, to read the review. If you are not already familiar with the blog, you may want to browse/read other essays. The myriad of perspectives are thought-provoking and meaningful.

I also hope you’ll click over to my Liberating Lomie page and buy the book. I don’t often ask for something in return for writing this blog, but as I launch this new book, it will fill my heart with gratitude to know my story is finding a home in the hearts of my readers.

I leave you with a photo of a vista from two day trips that David and I took over the weekend — one on his birthday, and one on mine. We traveled on the Blueridge Parkway and saw many vistas along our way. There is something about cloud shadows on mountaintops and sun rays coming down from the heavens that fill me with awesome wonder.

Photo by Saloma Furlong