As the mother of seven boys, Mag Singer fears she will never have the career she dreams of. But she begins to re-evaluate her priorities after she learns that her troubled middle son is missing after the terrorist bombing of his Marine barracks in Beirut. For three days, as the family awaits word of his fate, they are forced to come to terms with themselves and each other, and to rediscover the deep reservoir of love they once shared.
--This text refers to the
Perfect Paperback
edition.
I started writing when my first two children were toddlers, we were living in a tiny apartment in West Virginia where I knew no one, and my husband and I were sharing one car. I got out only a few days a week and desperately needed some "adult" work for those long, homebound afternoons. When I volunteered to write a press release for the humane society, it appeared in the local paper, complete with my byline. I was hooked! I think I've written something almost every day in the 30+ years since.
I started out as a freelance newspaper journalist -- something even a stay-at-home mom could do -- and spent six years teaching myself to write fiction (six years of rejections!) before my first stories began appearing in magazines like McCall's, Good Housekeeping and Seventeen, which published lots of fiction in those days, and in literary magazines like The Carolina Quarterly.
I wrote my first novel, SAFE PASSAGE, after the youngest of my four children went to school, and I've been writing novels ever since. In 1995, SAFE PASSAGE became a movie starring Susan Sarandon, a great thrill, and many of the other books have received various recognitions and awards. But the greatest thrill has been the privilege having a long, satisfying career that has also let me spend so much time with my family. What more could any writer want?
