The Land I Am Given

by Glenn Mclaughlin

Overview

This is the more serious side of a two volume memoir, "Oops." being the other half. It is an effort, in case I am not around, to describe me for my granddaughter through my view of others. This collection of essays, poems and short prose explores family, people I have met or just noticed, people whose lives inspire mine, people whose lives have taught me how to be a better caring person in a world that all too often seems not to care. Mine is not a life that has known abuse, addiction, prison, violence or poverty. Similarly, I have not known grand material wealth though I have always been rich. I have been the beneficiary of love and sacrifice, the comfort of family, the dedication of friends. There has been disappointment to be sure, as well as sickness and loss but these are normal, parts of the life we all lead. This book is an effort to understand the gifts I have been given, and continue to receive, and to give my thanks for them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780977972821
Publisher:	Absurdly Normal Books / The Natalie Group Ltd.
Publication date:	01/12/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	434 KB

About the Author

Glenn McLaughlin is a grandfather. Depending on your viewpoint he is either semi-employed or semi-unemployed. He lost his last position in sales in the chemical and plastics industry six years ago and after a journey through two failed bio-tech start ups, a stint as a dishwasher in a coffee shop where he hosts a monthly poetry series he currently fills his days either substitute teaching or providing daycare for his granddaughter. He is a former runner who now occasionally walks from the kitchen to the family room though he does cut his own grass and rides his bike for several hours at a time on as many nice days as he can. His study of chemistry in college did nothing to prepare him to be a professional writer but the quality of observation that stood him well in a laboratory while engaged in basic research blending with his natural empathy finally set him on his path to poetry.

Editorial Reviews

With the poems and essays of The Land I Am Given, we are in the company of a speaker, putting polish and charm asideand asking, “Did you see that?” tugging on a sleeve and pointing to something just outside our normal plane of vision. A gesture, a phrase, a tumble of thoughts we’d normally turn away from—McLaughlin, in these pieces, doesn’t burnish these things into story but coaxes them to song. He hears with his heart. He sings out what never had been spoken

Thomas Gardner