Concept:

In Just Above Bone, I take a close look at the various ways families shape who they think they are by the way they tell their stories. I begin with my family’s love stories. I always assumed I was luckier than most because my family tells great love stories. Then one day, I realized the hazard: Listen long enough and you could wait a lifetime expecting to be swept off your feet.

What happens when our lives don’t turn out like the stories we’ve heard? Where to we turn when our long-claimed legacy is too much, doesn’t fit current circumstances, or gets in the way of discovering who we really are, as opposed to who our family expects us to be. Those heard-them-a-hundred-times stories can be as full of minefields as wisdom.

Just Above Bone is approximately 200 pages long and chronicles my story-filled journey into my family’s past, with an emphasis on my family's matriarchs. Newly aware of the power of story, I travel from a ranch in Idaho to an island off the coast of Denmark with various stops along the way gathering, examining, and wrestling with the hand-me-down history that made me who I am.

Why do we continue to tell that story? Why do we continue to tell that story THAT way? I ask again and again with surprising results. Although my search raises serious issues, the overall tone of the book is light-hearted, forgiving, and fun.

With permission, I also includes a few examples from friends’ families. Turns out there are broad similarities in how families tell their histories even across diverse cultures, and real reasons why many of us might want to take a good look at those same-old, same-old family stories.

This is a book that goes beyond one family and their place in American history. It is about how story can help us find firm footing amid the chaos of change. It is a love-poem to storytellers, a roadmap to roots, an exercise in finding home. It is about taking control of one’s life and one’s story and how to recognize real wisdom in the modern mobile world.

It sounds too simple to be true, but when you change your story; you change everything. 

Check SAMPLE PAGES tab for Introduction and the first 50 pages