Love, and All That Jazz

Laurie Lewis picks up on her fascinating life with her second memoir, Love, and all that jazz (The Porcupine's Quill). Married and living in the midst of New York City's 1950s jazz scene, Laurie meets Gary, the embodiment of New York cool, and with whom a relationship develops that will start a journey through divorce, remarriage, motherhood, a return to Canada and into publishing. It is a memoir of a marriage, but it is ultimately a story of independence.

...this one is not a dirge. It is not a hard-luck story. If it could be sung, it would be a jazz tune, hard bop, a perfect tune for Shout Sister!Good. Gutsy. Real.'--Merilyn Simonds "Kingston Whig-Standard "

... to describe the essence of Laurie's book, we need some adjectives--gripping, poignant, excruciatingly honest, heart-inspiring, heart-breaking, and courageous come to mind. We'd need to honor the colors and the moods of an era captured with Laurie's brush strokes ... In fact, her brushstrokes are breathtaking. Laurie Lewis carries the reader, as though on tangible breezes blowing into New York City apartments through small windows 60 years ago, into the heart of an era on the brink of something big--the compliance of the 1950s inundated by cultural groundswells and eddies of hipness and coolness. Oh, how she describes the anguish and drug culture for many of New York City's Jazz musicians ...' - Lise Goddard