Böcker av Diana B Roberts

In Missing Parts, a powerful and thought-provoking novel, the unbreakable bond of friendship is tested when Lacey Pierce encounters her childhood best friend, Mimi Faraday, in a Boston homeless shelter. The story delves into the complex factors that contribute to resilience in the face of mental illness and life's challenges, exploring why some individuals thrive while others struggle.Lacey and Mimi's story begins in a charming New England town during the transformative 1960s and 70s, where they attend a prestigious prep school. After Mimi's wedding to Chapin, the couple embarks on a life of community service in Newfoundland, while Lacey joins the Peace Corps in Africa, all young, idealistic, and full of promise.Fast forward to the summer of 1995, when Lacey's world is shaken by the discovery of Mimi among the homeless at a soup kitchen in a Boston cathedral. After a quarter-century in Newfoundland, Mimi has returned to Boston, destitute and living in a halfway house for abused women in Cambridge. The novel masterfully traces the parallel journeys of these two women over the intervening decades, revealing the twists and turns that led them to their current circumstances.Missing Parts is a standalone fiction that explores the enduring power of friendship, the impact of life's choices, and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Through Lacey and Mimi's story, readers are invited to contemplate the complex interplay of factors that shape our lives and the lives of those we hold dear.

Lacey Pierce, recently returned from the Peace Corps in Africa, falls in love with a young lawyer and peace activist, Doug Pierce. Doug has been sentenced to prison for resisting the local draft during the Vietnam War. While waiting for the appeal on the case, Doug and Lacey start a lively commune. Doug wins his appeal and is assigned as civilian counsel for dissident GIs in the American military in Japan. In Japan, differences erode the couple's relationship. Returning to the States in New York City, the couple enters therapy, but the marriage fails. Alone, Lacey goes home to Boston for a friend's wedding. She visits her father's grave and realizes that her male adventures have been false starts in search of him.Diana B. Roberts, known as Dina, has been a fundraising professional for more than three decades.She has held positions of responsibility in a number of prominent Boston non-profit institutions, including The YMCA of Greater Boston, the Boston Medical Center, and Milton Academy, of which she is a graduate, and currently the Gore Place Society in Waltham.Earlier in her career, she served in a variety of positions: speech writer in the Federal Government in Washington, D.C.; editor of the major English Japanese newspaper in Tokyo; and Peace Corps Volunteer in North Africa.