Anchor Out
Barbara Sapienza
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
Sixty-year-old Frances Pia lives alone on a thirty-foot sailboat anchored near Sausalito, where she communes with the fog, sea lions, cormorants, and two sailor friends, Otto and Russell. She performs random acts of public defacement--painting drainpipes, public restrooms, and murals on the sides of houses--which she believes are beautification projects, and struggles with bouts of depression and mania. Frankly, she's a bit of a nutcase. But Frances wasn't always this way. She was once a Catholic nun with a sister, Anne, who loved her dearly. But then she slept with her brother-in-law, Greg--and ashamed and pregnant, she fled, leaving Anne, her art, and her vocation behind. When she also lost her baby, Nicola, in a freak accident, she lost faith in God and became a keeper of sorrows.
Through a series of wacky adventures, including bouts with the cops and the sea, Frances opens her heart to love for the first time in years--and begins to really paint the town, redeeming herself with Anne and freeing herself from her guilt over Nicola's death along the way.
Product Details
Price
$16.95
$15.76
Publisher
She Writes Press
Publish Date
April 25, 2017
Pages
280
Dimensions
5.4 X 8.4 X 0.7 inches | 0.7 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781631521652
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About the Author
Barbara Sapienza, PhD, is a retired clinical psychologist and an alumna of San Francisco State University's creative writing master's program. She writes and paints, nourished by her spiritual practices of meditation, tai chi, and dance. Her family, friends, and grandchildren are her teachers. Her first novel, Anchor Out (She Writes Press, 2017) received an IPPY bronze medal for Best Regional Fiction, West Coast. Sapienza lives in Sausalito, CA, with her husband.
Reviews
2019 Best Book Awards Finalist in Women's Fiction 2017 IPPY Bronze medal Winner in Pacifc West Best Regional Fiction "Frances Pia del Aqua is a sixty-year old renegade, mystic, artist, ex-nun, and nut case. A chronic run-away, she lives on a tenuously anchored old boat in the middle of Richardson Bay and paddles in to shore for her coffees, conversations, and painting projects. Barbara Sapienza has depicted the life and world of this difficult, loveable, misunderstood woman with a tender sensitivity that is unforgettable."
-Molly Giles, author of All the Wrong Places "Sapienza explores the difficult task of forgiveness of others and of oneself in this unusual story of Frances, who can't seem to break her fall from grace. She describes the Sausalito waterfront world with a painter's eye and creates vibrant characters with a psychologist's insights. It is a quiet, exquisite novel that invites deep self-reflection."
-Sharmon J. Hilfinger, author of Arctic Requiem: The Story of Luke Cole and Kivalina "Setting her novel around the cold but welcoming waters of the Golden Gate, Barbara Sapienza paints a picture of what it might mean to fall in love with an imperfect life. "Love is survival," we learn in these pages, and Anchor Out is a beautiful and moving labor of love."
-Camille T. Dungy, author of Guidebook to Relative Strangers
-Molly Giles, author of All the Wrong Places "Sapienza explores the difficult task of forgiveness of others and of oneself in this unusual story of Frances, who can't seem to break her fall from grace. She describes the Sausalito waterfront world with a painter's eye and creates vibrant characters with a psychologist's insights. It is a quiet, exquisite novel that invites deep self-reflection."
-Sharmon J. Hilfinger, author of Arctic Requiem: The Story of Luke Cole and Kivalina "Setting her novel around the cold but welcoming waters of the Golden Gate, Barbara Sapienza paints a picture of what it might mean to fall in love with an imperfect life. "Love is survival," we learn in these pages, and Anchor Out is a beautiful and moving labor of love."
-Camille T. Dungy, author of Guidebook to Relative Strangers
