A memoir by Alexia LaFortune…
THE TRUTH CAN ALWAYS BE WRITTEN
We send our daughters out into the world with a license to drive and a GPS. But there are no sacred words to guide them. What do we tell our daughters to strengthen them? How much will we reveal? Alexia LaFortune confronted by her daughter’s insecurities as she went off to college and faced with her own uncertain future, struggled with these questions until she found an answer that would lead to her ultimate parental frontier: telling her daughter the truth. But in doing so she would have to take her daughter to places not easily shared by mother and daughter. Her path was not acceptable. She broke the rules…
Sex, Love, and Spirit, a memoir candidly recounts Alexia LaFortune’s tragicomic journey from the oppression and shame of a Boston Irish Catholic upbringing in the 1950s, through the free fall into the dizzy funk of the wild sixties and seventies, including heartbreak and a soul crushing affair with a famous guy, to her eventual search for spiritual awareness and love. These intimate tales were written to inspire strength and confidence in her daughter and in herself when faced with an uncertain future. The ultimate message: Say yes to the adventure, and then, thank you.
Alexia LaFortune MA Developmental Clinical Psychology, MARI, FAMI, is a creative arts therapist, writing coach, and screenwriter. Her personal essays have appeared internationally, including “Beds I Have Known” and “Hairdo from Hell.” She conducts creativity workshops and currently offers the popular series “Eat, Talk, Write.” She lives in Los Angeles — and in Santa Fe, New Mexico as often as she can.
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Endorsements:
SEX, LOVE AND SPIRIT: A MEMOIR by Alexia LaFortune is an engrossing memoir written from a mother to a daughter. The author doesn’t hold back on her feelings, nor does she sugarcoat her experiences and adventures. Whether you’re a mother or a daughter, or both, you’re sure to enjoy SEX, LOVE, AND SPIRIT.
The cover is beautiful. The female figure reminds me of a goddess, which is very appropriate for this book. The back cover is sure to win the author many readers. The blurb is well written, telling the reader the purpose of the book and what to expect. The fact this author gained four important endorsements is impressive.
The book is well written. I was entranced from the start and kept reading. I felt the author’s emotions and confusion when she had a negative experience with a priest. I laughed when I read that a band played “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.” The song was so overplayed at its peak that its meaning eventually felt diluted, never to return until each new generation hears it for the first time. I also laughed at the “gift” bag the author received, including a sample of Tide detergent.
This memoir is honest, funny, and touching. A lovely book.
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“There are no maps or guidebooks,” Alexia LaFortune writes as she begins the “tales of womanhood” that drive this memoir’s journey into the feminine. Yet she maps the landmarks of her inner geography like a seasoned navigator. The trek is personal, spiritual, universal, and utterly human. At once self-assured and self-conscious, LaFortune traverses the highlands, flatlands, and wetlands of love, heartache, insecurity, and faith, ultimately proving there is no better life-guide than the wisdom of experience.
More than a map, this book is a beautiful selfless offering from mother to daughter. Baring heart and soul, exposing her innermost secrets, LaFortune imparts the greatest gift of all—the gift of knowing that every mother’s and daughter’s journey is a shared one. – Carmella Padilla, author of The Work of Art: Folk Artists in the 21st Century and El Rancho de las Golondrinas: Living History in New Mexico’s La Cienega Valley.
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How Susan Doherty became Alexia LaFortune is a beautifully written memoir that will make you grateful to be a woman and more open to the possibilities that magic exists our everyday lives. Written as a love letter to her daughter, it’s the kind of book you wish you’d had been given along with your Girl Scout manual and Emily Post. –Patricia Morrisroe, author of 9 ½ Narrow: My Life in Shoes
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READ THIS BOOK, to remember your own youthful romances. Read this book to watch a woman carve her chosen path, and to witness the gift of story—in all its elegant and naked beauty—laid at her daughters feet. Women, read this book and see yourself. –Lisa Dale Norton, author: Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills (Picador/St. Martin’s Press) Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing a Memoir (Griffin/St. Martin’s Press)
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“I couldn’t put this book down. It dug in deep, and wouldn’t let go. It’s a stunning read. A love letter from mother to a daughter, and truthfully, it’s for all daughters, all our daughters. It’s filled with messy, gorgeous, heartbreaking and heart-cracking truth. The thing about great writing, bold writing is this: it stays with you. Hounds you. Haunts you. Awakens you. Lingers with you. Alexia LaFortune is a great writer. This is a great book. I couldn’t put it down, and I didn’t want this book to end.” –Amy Ferris, author, Marrying George Clooney, Confessions from a Midlife Crisis
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“What if you weren’t a movie star, but you had a pretty rollicking life? And what if you were willing, for the sake of your soul and that of your daughter’s, to spill the raw truth of your life, part secret and part sacred? This memoir of Alexia LaFortune’s is that book. Sex, Love, and Spirit brings a life forged in the wild Sixties and Seventies to Baby Boomers of all ages. It’s a good read, a reunion with self, and doesn’t let us down. –Joan Logghe, Santa Fe Poet Laureate Emerita
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“This is a necessary book, an important book, and except for the fact that it is memoir it is reminiscent of the “new feminist literature” that was fictionalized by the likes of Marilyn French, Marge Piercy and Rita Mae Brown back in the day. This one is for all the boomer-girls who loved the bad boys and the wounded birds and especially for the ones who have daughters to warn. If you lived—really lived—through the last half of this century, you will relate to this memoir with the deepest nostalgia. If you were in a convent or under a rock somewhere, you will see what you missed out on.” –Corie Skolnick, author, ORFAN and America’s Most Eligible
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“From the first words, “Mummy said I wandered but I was looking for the light,” this book had me in its thrall and I could not put it down. Breathless, I cheered her restless journey from man to man to soulmate; from heartbreak to love; from lost to found. Alexia LaFortune is a spiritual seeker who writes with elegance and wit. Her dialogue is exquisite, her writing is, in turn, lyrical, sexy, hilarious and always deeply honest. This deep and important tome from a mother to a daughter glows with authentic tales of womanhood that made me want to tell my own tales to my daughter. Her lyrical prose inspired me to dig deeper as a writer. What a poetess! What a woman!” –Linda Schreyer, author Tears and Tequila, TV/Screenwriter
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“Reading Alexia LaFortune’s Sex, Love, and Spirit reminded me of all the challenges women faced during the years before the women’s movement really took off, She relates stories that often left me with my mouth hanging open in surprise and sometimes laughing out loud. LaFortune’s memoir is a wonderful examination of what it means to live a courageous life. Thanks to her candor, humor and warmth, her memoir actually lives up to the title, and you find that you won’t be able to put it down.” –Renee Swindle, author of Shake Down the Stars and A Pinch of Ooh La La
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“The authenticity & openness Alexia LaFortune pours into each page feels more like an intimate exchange with a lifelong friend, than a memoir intended for large audiences. She, the girl, the daughter, the woman, traveling to and with her own beloved daughter, reminds me of the common threads that connect women. While we are not all mothers, we are all daughters and that job title comes with undeniable similarities. You will come to love this author, and you will certainly see yourself in her journey.” –Kristine Van Raden, co-author Letters to Our Daughters
