My Unexpected Life, by Martina Clark

“I’ve read several HIV/AIDS-related memoirs over the years, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen an inside day-to-day account of an activist’s work –– with the UN, no less! It’s a terrific read.” –– Hank Trout, Senior Editor, A&U: America’s AIDS Magazine

“What’s not to like about a book that features a wooden penis and a silicone vagina?” – Patricia Marx, staff writer, THE NEW YORKER

At age 28, the doctors told Martina Clark she had HIV and five years to live. With a sense of nothing to lose, she dove into activism. Then, fell into an international career, starting as the first openly HIV-positive person to work for UNAIDS in 1996. A mix of personal memoir, travel, humor and an up-close look at the squishy underbelly of the United Nations, My Unexpected Life follows her personal journey—emotional and physical—interwoven with her professional path. From diagnosis to starting treatment, surviving an abusive marriage and fostering a teenage daughter, Martina’s memoir adds an insider’s view to the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, particularly as pertains to women. Throughout, she draws parallels to the COVID pandemic–including her own long-haul bout with COVID–reflecting on her experiences as she journeys through life with an incurable illness, a well-stamped passport, and a stubborn determination that keeps her alive to bear witness to the human condition in My Unexpected Life.

Trade Paperback, $19.95           Ebook Edition, $6.99

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IN ANOTHER PLACE: WITH AND WITHOUT MY FATHER, NORMAN MAILER, BY SUSAN MAILER

“In Another Place brings us to many remarkable new places in the Mailer universe. Written with tenderness, acuity and unadorned psychological depth, Susan Mailer’s memoir is a powerful look at the literary world.” —Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin

“Brisk, enthralling [. . .] full of dramatic family scenes, most of them heretofore unknown. I wish I had her memoir in hand when writing my biography.” —J. Michael Lennon, author of Norman Mailer: A Double Life

“In this beautifully structured memoir, Susan writes clearly and honestly about that murky landscape in which we children of these 20th-century white male giants live—between adulation and adoration on one end of the spectrum, to the distinctly human, deeply flawed father on the other.” —Kaylie Jones, author of Lies My Mother Never Told Me

Norman Mailer, Susan Mailer’s father, was among the most celebrated, talented, and controversial writers of the 20th Century. The Naked and the Dead (1948), inspired by his experience in World War II, was a bestseller and made him famous at the age of 25. Notoriously combative and egotistical, her father enjoyed a good fight both physically and verbally. Whether cheered or booed, Mailer was front and center in America’s cultural battles for more than 50 years. He married six times and fathered nine children. Susan, born in 1949, is the eldest.

Susan’s parents separated when she was a baby. She grew up shuttling between her mother’s home in Mexico and New York. Later she would marry a Chilean activist, spending the majority of her adult life in Chile, where she is a psychoanalyst.

In Another Place tells the story of her intense and complex relationship with her father, her five stepmothers and nine siblings, and the joys and pains of being part of the large Mailer clan. It is a tale of separation, and of the rewards and struggles of living in two very different cultures. Of being someone who belongs everywhere and nowhere, always longing for a life . . . In Another Place.

Trade Paperback, $19.95           Ebook Edition, $9.99

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