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by ShivaunWoolfson (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.39

  This is a moving and often shocking story of a passionate, intelligent woman from a wealthy Irish-Jewish family in Dublin. After years of physical and mental abuse from her unstable mother, Shivaun Woolfson fled as a teenager in the 1960s into the arms of a new age cult in Dublin, horrifying her devoutly religious father. When he and his brothers kidnapped her from this group and forced her back into the old faith, Shivaun escaped again, and moved into a house of the bass-player of a young up-and-coming band called The Boomtown Rats. When this relationship broke down, she made her way to the United States and married a Cuban in Miami, a womanizer and cocaine dealer. Although she never took or sold drugs herself, she soon became embroiled in the seedy underworld of Cuban Miami. Juan was imprisoned for drug trafficking, meanwhile, she fell in love with another man, who subjected her and her sons to violence. She struggled on in America, living close to the edge, finally gaining a degree, and then a doctorate and respect as a teacher and community activist.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $6.50

  Growing up in 1960s Dublin in a wealthy Jewish family, Shivaun survives the physical abuse of a beautiful and damaged mother. Desperate to belong, she abandons her Jewish roots and flees her family, her home and her family to seek comfort among the followers of an Indian guru.At 21, still haunted by her past, Shivaun makes her way to Miami and marries a handsome refugee, straight off the boat from Cuba. But Julio is a womanizer and drug dealer and Shivaun soon becomes embroiled in Miami's seedy underworld. Eight months pregnant, she finds herself in prison, her chances of ever gaining American citizenship ruined. Finally, she finds the courage to walk away, and, alone with two small boys, she fights back. For the first time, she also discovers meaningful love and is then, at last, able to begin plotting her journey home.