Submitted by Griffin Bay Bookstore
To hear directly from islanders who have had heartrending and life-changing experiences and then gone on to write about them, be sure to attend two book talks this week.
Cere Demuth’s just-published book, “The Way We Stay: A Memoir of Recovery,” couldn’t be more timely. To learn more about addiction and recovery, stop by Griffin Bay Bookstore from 2-4 p.m., Saturday, June 30, and chat with Demuth as she launches her memoir.
Demuth’s only son’s opiate addiction leaves her coping with pain, fear and humiliation for 12 years. She struggles to balance the needs of her family beneath the shadow of addiction. She revisits her tumultuous childhood in the Bay Area after her birth to radical hippy during the Summer of Love. She recounts her life on Whidbey Island where she and her family eventually lived in a small, rural, alternative community. Demuth invites the reader into her internal world as a teenage mother in 1985, an adoptive mom in 2000 and a psychotherapist of 25 years, as she strives to heal her family and herself from the suffering caused by addiction.
For those who have seen the movie “Adrift,” you’ll want to come to the San Juan Island Library at 7 p.m., Monday, July 2 for a program sponsored by Griffin Bay Bookstore and the library. The movie depicts Tami Oldham Ashcraft’s story of her 41-day ordeal on a sailboat, barely afloat, after being pounded and wrecked by hurricane force winds. Hear Ashcraft talk about her survival, the movie and her book written with Susea McGearhart.
Ashcraft and her fiance Richard Sharp set sail from Tahiti with Ashcraft’s hometown of San Diego as their ultimate destination but sailed directly into one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in recorded history. They found themselves battling pounding rain, waves the size of skyscrapers and 140-knot winds. Sharp tethered himself to the boat and sent Ashcraft below to safety, and then all went eerily quiet. Hours later, Ashcraft awakened to find the boat in ruins, and Sharp nowhere in sight. “Adrift” recounts the story of Ashcraft’s journey to safety with no motor, no masts and with little hope of rescue.
