Merry Clark

Stripping Down to the Bones Merry Clark 1. izdevums

"I never had the guts to sit in the back of the bus with the bad boys, being known as a 'nice girl' -- a dreaded label if you wanted to be part of the in crowd." This is the story of a girl who grows up running on the back roads of the Midwest and winds up taking the long way home. How does this pretty, educated, organically grown girl become an outcast in her own country? Set against the backdrops of the competitive University of Michigan, the vast Front Range of Colorado, the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, and a small backwoods home town in Michigan, this story winds its way through untrammeled wilderness as the search for belonging unfolds. Who does she think she is? How does she go about answering this question? Is she only who others think she is? The narrative is often reflective, questioning the very nature of real life experiences and expanding on the greater issues that lie just under the surface. The narrative is honest and does not sidestep the inconvenient or the uncomfortable, but rather sheds light on the "convenient untruths" that many use as crutches to get through life. There are no neatly tied up endings and no answers given here. The goal is to challenge conventional thinking, cross out easy answers, and draw the reader into the mind and heart of this examined life. Even with the reflective pauses in the narrative, the pacing flows smoothly as each short chapter merges into the next as water falls over rocks.