So Much for the White Picket Fence: A Memoir

Product Description

So Much for the White Picket Fence gives an intimate and gritty look inside a long-term marriage. The author shares her journey of letting go of the fantasies and idealized portrayal of the perfect marriage and family life. The author comes to terms with life’s unfairness through several dramatic life experiences—the loss of a young love, birth of a handicapped son, another son’s addiction, and her husband’s affair. She writes openly about the pain and lessons she learned and the impact each of these had on her family members. Her story touches on all the universal emotions-love and hate, loss and fulfillment, fear and courage, joy and sorrow, trust and betrayal. A thread of hope weaves through its pages, giving inspiration to anyone dealing with disappointment, disillusionment, or despair. The author’s book depicts in vivid detail that over time and with love you can get through anything.

Review

– I rarely read books as quickly as I read So Much for the White Picket Fence. This memoir is a real page-turner, not merely because the author has led quite a colorful life but because the writing is clear, honest, literate, and creates pictures in my mind. The story is a powerful testament to faith in family, in humanity, in the universal puzzle known as God, and mostly to the author herself.
Joe Ryan-PhD Clinical Psychology, English Professor, Los Angeles City College
– How do you keep moving forward with resilience, holding fast to love, faith, and forgiveness in the face of great loss and suffering? This is the story Karen LaGraff bravely shares in her inspiring memoir. She shares searingly honest details of her journey learning to accept her past, and also to live and learn from the traumas she experiences in her own family. The book will leave you with hope that “If Karen can make her way through, so can I,” which is exactly the sense of hope many need, especially now.
Cali Yost, Author of Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day
– Karen LaGraff has put into words both the pain and the joy of living in her emotional memoir that reminds us that life itself goes on through both the dark and light times. Her words are beautiful and haunting, and I found myself drawn into her journey, as if I lived it with her.
Greg Wilkey, Principal East Side Elementary School and best-selling author of YA fiction
– You’ll find parts of yourself in Karen LaGraff’s captivating story of love, loss, and life. In an era when intense grief and anxiety had no outlet in the counseling office, we read her words and echo, “me too.” Readers will be able to feel, experience, and resurrect their own stories. And that makes this memoir worth reading, along with great therapy.
Judy Herman, LPC-MHSP Counselor, Speaker, and Author of
Beyond Messy Relationships

About the Author

Karen LaGraff has a B.S. in Education from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and a M.ED. from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She has worked for UTC as a student teacher supervisor and for the state of Tennessee under the Early Intervention program evaluating pre-school children. She taught elementary school for eighteen years before retiring. She now does volunteer work for the Ronald McDonald House, the Hart Gallery, and Bridge Refugee Services. She enjoys reading, writing, traveling, exercising, gardening and spending time with family and friends. She has three grown sons, two grandsons, and lives in Chattanooga with her husband.

A native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Karen Paul Stone holds a BA degree in French and Spanish from the University of Kentucky and founded Waldenhouse Publishers, Inc. in 1995 near Chattanooga. She serves as Editor in Chief and principal designer. She is also Editor of McCoy Farm & Gardens Newsletter in Walden, TN. She was co-founder of Ashland Press in 1975 and for ten years a principal of Transylvania Printing Company, both in Lexington, KY. She is author of several books.