These Dreams of You: A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Resilience tells the story of a mother’s love for and commitment to her gifted daughter, who developed anorexia at age ten and subsequently died young. The narrative offers an unvarnished account of the fifteen years the author strove to save her daughter from her perfectionistic goal of being the thinnest person alive. It then follows the author’s intentional yet heart-wrenching shift from trying to get her daughter to overcome her eating disorder to supporting her as she lived out her short life in the way she chose. Interspersed throughout the narrative are several lyrical letters written by a mother to her beloved daughter since her death. This story conveys hope and resilience, as the author has prevailed through her grief with no regrets about her parenting of her challenging daughter.
Advance Prais for These Dreams of You
“These Dreams of You is Ann McCloskey’s harrowing, unflinching story of her family caught in the clutches of anorexia and the devastating, inevitable ending of that story for her daughter Colleen and for each of them.”
—Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
“Such a compelling story, full of sorrow and truth. Ann McCloskey had to write this book, no question. For all the rest of us, it’s a book we have to read.”
—Peter Gould, author of Write Naked and Horse-Drawn Yogurt
“These Dreams of You is a courageous, tender encounter with ‘life on life’s terms.’ Ann McCloskey’s daughter Colleen was a gifted dancer whose obsessive-compulsive disorder denied her the freedom to dance. McCloskey‘s memoir documents the choreography, the steps and gestures, often desperate, of their dance, a pas de deux, for mother and daughter. Colleen is brilliant, precocious, and possessed by anorexia. McCloskey, mother and therapist, embraces every action to save her daughter. While McCloskey must surrender as her daughter does, this writing retrieves Colleen: celebrating her beauty beyond their torment. Again, Love proves more durable than Death.”
—Verandah Porch, author of Sudden Eden
“Ann McCloskey’s memoir These Dreams of You is not simply a story of a mother’s ultimate wound—the death of a child. It is a story of grief and grace and a love so profound it breaks open any heart willing to bear witness to these pages. McCloskey shares her unimaginable experience with us, but instead of casting that drama as the spine of her narrative, she opens to her own remarkable transformation, chronicling that life change, as memoir can and must do, by working through her grief to transcend all barriers, even death. A remarkable achievement, this book deserves the broadest audience possible.”
—Pam Bernard, author of the verse novel, Esther, and three collections of poetry
About the Author
Ann McCloskey earned a B.A. degree in Social Work and an M.A. degree in Counseling Psychology. She spent two decades training clinical mental health counselors in a graduate program at Antioch University, while also working as a licensed clinical mental health counselor. She subsequently spent fourteen years teaching psychology at a small college serving students with learning differences. With her husband, Joe Meyer, Ann raised two daughters in rural Vermont. This is her first book.
SPECS
These Dreams of You
NONFICTION / MEMOIR
Green Place Books
Format: Softcover
Price: $19.95 US; CA $26.95
Page Count: 200 pages
Trim Size: 6 x 9
ISBN: 979-8-9870707-3-4
Publication Date: October 17, 2023
Distributor: IPG / Chicago
Rights sold: All rights available.
Rights & Publicity contact: Dede Cummings
dede@greenwriterspress.com
Distributor: IPG; also available through Ingram, Follett/Baker & Taylor, and other wholesalers.
Individuals can pre-order directly from Bookshop.org, Indiebound.org, online, or contact your local, independent bookstore.
Booksellers, libraries, colleges/universities, gift shops, etc., can order directly through IPG:
Independent Publishers Group
814 N. Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60610
Order Placement: (800) 888-4741
Via email: frontdesk@ipgbook.com
For an advance reader’s copy—digital or print—email dede@greenwriterspress.com