I'm a personal essayist, commentator for NPR's "All Things Considered" and the author of PARCHED: a memoir about the mystery of suffering, addiction as spiritual thirst, and THE SEARCH FOR GOD!!!! Out last year in hardback from Penguin, PARCHED was re-launched in trade paperback by New American Library Sept. 5, 2006.
Born and raised on the New Hampshire seacoast, I spent a decade on Boston, moved to L.A. in 1990 and in short order, quit my heinous lawyering job, converted to Catholicism (Los Angeles will do that to you), and began writing. My second book, REDEEMED: A Spiritual Misfit Stumbles Towards God, Marginal Sanity and the Peace that Passes All Understanding will be published by Viking in February, 2008.
Further claim to fame: my little brother Joe is frontman for The Queers, perhaps the greatest punk band of all time--besides Screeching Weasel. Listen to my "All Things Considered" commentary about seeing this amazing sibling of mine in concert, as well as other transcendent-in-the-ordinary, life-is-wacked-though-beautiful pieces at npr.org
Let's face it, folks, books and music keep us alive, so let's keep listening, reading, writing, singing... For publications, events, contact info etc., check out my website: www.Heather-King.com
PARCHED: A remarkable story of spiritual enlightenment and personal triumph from the depths of alcoholism!
FACTUALLY ACCURATE!
EMOTIONALLY TRUTHFUL!
Chosen as a "MOST MEMORABLE MEMOIR" of 2005
by Publishers Weekly
Comic Denis Leary says of Parched: "Dark, poignant, and hilariously funny, King's escapades evoke the demons that drive and haunt us all."
From sneaking drinks in small town New Hampshire to morning cocktails in Boston dive bars (before law school classes, no less) King chronicles her drinking years with wit and clarity. Earning a law degree while fighting off hangovers, dusting cockroaches off her dirty piles of clothes and stale glasses of beer, King's journey toward redemption is both appalling and hilarious. And when it seems there is no escape, she is pulled from the abyss by the most unlikely of sources. Casting her lot with the rest of humanity at last, she learns that suffering leads to redemption, that pain leads to compassion for other people who are in pain, and, above all, that a sense of humor really, really helps.
"A hefty chaser of humor and redemption before last call" - L.A. Weekly
"Loaded with jokes and wicked anecdotes...Parched is a big-picture kind of memoir, literary and complete " --Robin Vaughan, Boston Phoenix
"Pained adolescence...sordid drinking days...King avoids the cliches in favor of self-deprecating humor...terrifying, and equally human." - Claire Suddath, Nashville Scene
"...gives us all hope for embracing grace" - Arlene Helderman, National Catholic Reporter
Buy Parched at amazon.com
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