Stay: A Story of Family, Love, and Other Traumas

(Hardback)

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Julie Fingershs Stay is so rich, wise, funny, and beautifully written. Its hard to put down once you start."
Anne Lamott, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Named one of Zibby Owens's Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2024

"Fingersh's story should help readers dealing with family secrets and mental and physical health issues feel less alone."
Booklist
Called Rich, wise, funny, and beautifully written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Anne Lamott, Stay : A Story of Family, Love, and Other Traumas is a riveting debut that captures the joyous and painful complexity of family love and loyalty, the cost of family secrets, and the quest to help the people we love most without losing our own way. Its also a rare window into two of the biggest epidemics gripping society today: mental illness and chronic illness and the ways in which they affect relationships, personal identity, and the blueprint of our lives.
Told through the eyes of the author as both a young sibling and a mid-life parent, Julie Fingersh seamlessly weaves together present and past, unlocking the puzzle of her early adulthood with her struggling brother from the vantage point of a mid-life parent on the verge of an empty nest and her next chapter, just as her college-bound daughters life suddenly careens off track.
Sparkling with warmth, wit, and lyrical prose, Fingersh provides insight and sustenance for everyone wrestling with mid-lifes ghosts, parenting adult children, and the twin pillagers of fear and the inner critic. Above all, Stay is for readers who want to think, feel, laugh, cry, and perhaps see their own lifes trajectory and path forward with new eyes.

Reviews

Julie Fingershs Stay is so rich, wise, funny, and beautifully written. Its hard to put down once you start." -- Anne Lamott
Stay is profound, funny, and masterfully told. Its a beautiful memoir centered on the power of lovethe joys of love, the pain of love, the responsibility of love. I read it in a single day. I cant stop thinking about it. I loved it. -- Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project series
Julie Fingershs invaluable and highly readable memoir is asking us who we thought we were, how that squares with who weve become and what we might want to do about it. A question every woman I know is asking right about now. -- Kelly Corrigan, four-time New York Times bestselling author of The Middle Place and host of PBS Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan
A rare and compelling narrative about what it means to have a struggling child who is an almost grown-up; a balm for those whose children are on the cusp. Immersive, warm, reallike having a cup of coffee with an intimate friend. I loved the writing. -- Zibby Owens, "NYC's Most Powerful Book-fluencer (Vulture), founder of Zibby Media, author of USA Today bestselling Blank, and host of Moms Dont Have Time to Read Podcast
Julie Fingersh writes with a brilliant mind and a loving heart. Stay is a book of remarkable emotional depth and wisdom for anyone in search of moving past their pain and making the most of their one precious life. -- Dr. Edith Eva Eger, New York Times bestselling author of The Gift, The Choice, and featured guest on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday
Stay is a work of art and a treasure. The journey through its pages is an exhibit of integrity, vulnerability, talent, and raw humanity. You will be enthralled. -- Harville Hendrix, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples and How to Talk with Anyone About Anything
Lyrical, wise, freewheeling, both heartbreaking and laugh out loud funny, Stay is proof of the possibility that awaits us all to claim our creative lives, no matter what stage of life we are in. -- Laura Zinn Fromm, founder of Sweet Lab Writing Workshops and author of Sweet Survival
Luminous, irreverent, captivating...With a voice youll fall in love with like a new best friend, Stay is a love letter to all of us mid-lifers searching for a new roadmap of joy and meaning. Its also for us mothers, daughters, and sisters who want to love fiercely without losing ourselves. -- Laura Munson, New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of This is Not the Story You Think It Is
Stay is a deeply personal book that will touch readers and bring greater understanding to raising young adults in todays world of depression and anxiety. Its also an inspiring story for empty nesters about life after kids. I could not put it down. -- Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown and Flown, the #1 site number one site for parents of teens and college students and New York Times bestselling author
In this well-written memoir, Fingersh shares how it feels to live through a mentally ill brothers death at 26 and a daughters ulcerative colitis diagnosis. Fingersh also grapples with feelings of inadequacy over being a full-time mom, but her feelings about Danny are the heart of her account. Fingersh's story should help readers dealing with family secrets and mental and physical health issues feel less alone. * Booklist *
At 50, an aspiring writer confronts painful challenges in her past and present. Fingershs memoir weaves together three topicsmemories of her younger brothers mental illness and death at 26, her bitter sense of failure and struggle to reconnect with her lost promise, and the serious health problems that emerge for her 18-year-old daughter during her freshman year of college.... Fortunately, it all makes sense in the end, thanks to revelations found in EMDR therapy. [T]he ending is uplifting. * Kirkus Reviews *

Author Bio

Julie Fingersh is a writer and freelance journalist. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Huffington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, BusinessWeek, and more. Her Substack newsletter, Take my Advice. Im Not Using It is a midlife sequel to an award-winning humor column she wrote in New York City in her twenties for Billboard Publications, Inc. Julie also served as the founding executive director of Boston Cares, which became a nationally recognized model for community and corporate partnerships and recently celebrated its third decade of service. A Kansas City native, she has two adult children and lives with her husband in Marin County, California. Read more about Julie and her work at http://www.juliefingershauthor.com.