Love Sick - Softcover

Silverman, Sue William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091947103 ISBN 13: 9780091947101

Publisher: Ebury Press, 2012

Synopsis

'An honest and deeply chilling account of what it's like to suffer from a compulsion to look for love in what are most definitely the wrong places' Elle

For Sue Silverman, the wrong places to look for love include: At the end of a phone, when a stranger calls her college dorm late night and asks what she's wearing. On a blue leather couch, with a senator, while an intern on Capital Hill. In the back of a military truck, with a paratrooper, when hitching a ride across a desert on holiday. And still years later, in Room #213 of the Rainbow Motel, where she goes every Thursday lunchtime for routine sex with Rick (unbeknownst to Husband 2) ...

In Love Sick, her unflinching memoir of her 28 days of treatment in a clinic for female sex addicts, Sue revisits her past behaviour as she learns to put her demons behind her and discover what love really means.

About this title

Review:

"An honest and deeply chilling account of what it's like to suffer from a compulsion to look for love in what are most definitely the wrong places" (Elle)

"A self-proclaimed addict looks unflinchingly at the source of her sickness and her road to recovery" (O, The Oprah Magazine)

"Compelling ... candid, emotionally raw ... deeply moving" (Booklist)

"In an unflinching account, Sue William Silverman reveals how her desperate search for love through liaisons with hundreds of emotionally dangerous men sent her life spinning out of control" (You magazine)

From the Author:

Dear Reader,

I'd like to let you know a little about me and my writing.

I was born in Washington, D. C., where my father was a high government official in the Truman administration. Later, we moved to the West Indies where he was president of a bank. He was also a child molester. The juxtaposition of this double life--seemingly perfect in public, dark and scary in private--is what I write about in my memoir, "Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You." In my second memoir, "Love Sick: One Woman's Journey Through Sexual Addiction," I show how I replicated this double life as an adult. In public, all seemed fine--I attended Boston University, worked on Capitol Hill, was married. But this image was a mask that hid my secret world of sexual encounters with dangerous men, a shadowy life of obsession.

From about 1980 to 1992, I tried to tell my story as fiction. Looking back, I realize that the five or six (unpublished) novels I wrote during this time lacked an authentic voice. It was my therapist, ironically, who finally suggested I write my own story. At first I resisted. I had never considered nonfiction and thought I had nothing to say about myself. Finally, just to humor him (I told myself), I acquiesced, even though I believed I'd only be able to write a paragraph at the most. Maybe a page. The moment I began to write "Terror, Father," however, I felt as if I'd just learned to speak, that I heard my real voice for the first time. I completed the manuscript in three months. And even though it took much longer to write "Love Sick," I was finally writing what I knew. One thing I most love about writing memoirs, is that they provide me the opportunity to meet many courageous women. In fact, the responses that mean the most to me come in whispered phone calls and personal e-mails from my readers who thank me for telling their stories, too.

I've also written a book on the craft of writing, "Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir." In it, I share my experiences learning how to write, with the hope it'll help and encourage you to tell your story, too.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ebury Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0091947103
• ISBN 13: 9780091947101
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304