Contemptuous Marigolds

About the Book

Rachel Bloom is a painter and writer. She has lived most of her life in denial, is shut down and wants to know about her past so that she can feel present in her life. She has used marriages as an escape from remembering her past. In the late seventies, the mother of two daughters and married, she goes to college for the first time and through writing and painting and learning, she begins to remember what she has buried. She begins recording her memories and dreams and slowly evolves into a slow awakening. Can broken girls evolve, whole? she wonders. Will she ever find self, parental and romantic love? Is it too late?

Several years later she is a published author, and begins to exhibit her paintings. Her two daughters however have not escaped her emotional abandonment and share and have internalized her depression and low self esteem. Rachel begins to trace her mother’s past, to understand why her mother has kept her son, Rachel’s brother, because he is gay, locked in the house for 47 years. Rachel wants to free herself of her rage and depression so that she can free her daughters.

Years later, Rachel falls in love, but she struggles with intimacy. She lives alone and pursues her career, trying to build a legacy for her grown daughters. Through her recorded memories Rachel finds secrets to her past, and to her mother’s past, and after much pain, she begins a new journey with new choices.

About the Author