Coming soon--New Memoir
Tomorrow,
Long Ago
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Journeys of Loss and Wonder
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Sharyn Talbert
"One summer morning, they vanished. Sometimes I wondered, did it really happen? But I knew the truth. They weren’t hiding. They hadn’t run away. They were gone in the permanent sense. Hard evidence told us so. And when they vanished, other things vanished, too. Jolly friends quit joking. Chatterboxes shut up. Blood relations turned brittle, maybe because all of us were guilty. Summers would never again seem ripe and promising. No. After the vanishing, every new summer taunted us. Somebody called it a cosmic crime. We think the precious ones are here to stay until their absence shrivels us to nothingness, like salt on a snail."
Advance Praise For Tomorrow, Long Ago
"Heartbreaking and heart lifting, the book will grip readers with its searing portrayal of devastating loss and the author's subsequent reconstruction of life and family by embracing memories and searching for connections in unforeseen places."
Susan Hartmann
Distinguished Arts and Humanities Professor of History Emerita, The Ohio State University
"The depictions of the children are impossible to forget. The author's dedication in setting down the harrowing events defy the imagination. Must reading."
Ronda Griffith Bivens
MSW, Educator, Vinton County Schools
"Totally engrossing. A gifted writer with a wonderful sense of rhythm and pacing, she should be teaching our students. I was especially interested in how the Church affected her life."
Christopher Highley
Professor of English; Director, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Ohio State University, Author, Blackfriars in Early Modern London: Theater, Church, and Neighborhood, Oxford University Press, 2022
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"An indelible account of one woman's determination to embrace life in the wake of shattering loss. Talbert's keenly observed, tenderly rendered portraits of her family members (both human and nonhuman) stay with the reader, a testament to the transfiguring power of love."
Charlotte Weber
PhD, Scholar's Touch Editing
"Sharyn Talbert has written a wonderful book about every family's greatest fear. With a sharp eye for grief and a killing turn of phrase, Tomorrow, Long Ago will stay as long in the memory as the work of Emily Dickinson. Talbert shows us a heartbreaking new America, a world that, for all its sunlight, is in deep pain. At the same time, her book has an arc of grace, taking us to an improbable place of light and healing. This is a profound work of real importance."
Sebastian D. G. Knowles
Professor of English Emeritus, The Ohio State University