Wrestling With Seduction

About the Book

To wrestle: to engage in a determined struggle. Seduction: a temptation to fulfill a desire one might otherwise wish to resist; an act to charm and persuade.

Wrestling with Seduction, a collection of modern prose and poetry, takes the reader on a journey that progresses over terrain each of us likely has trod at one time or another. From the time we first experience “falling in love”, we also encounter along the way love’s fraternal and evil twin --- the blues. Then there are the other nuances of seduction: the seduction of what we see every day and covet for ourselves; the seduction of memory; the seductive forces of family and community beliefs, mores, and traditions; the seduction of time. On top of all that is the treachery and desperation of the heart, so that it usually is pretty untrustworthy. By middle age, we all probably know something about seduction --- the good and the bad and the in-between. The trouble is that giving in to it --- the falling --- feels so doggone good, whether one is young or old. But surviving the fall and telling about it later, with a laugh even, is a whole other story. This collection of personal offerings speaks not only about falling in love, but also about childhood and family and life and death and work and play and a lot of things which we may not always recognize as seductive. But they are. Herein, the struggle has a beginning, middle and something of a resolution, if that’s what one may wish to call it. This writer, at least, is enjoying this period of denouement.

About the Author

Lee Barbara Connally, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, still lives and works in the “City of Seven Hills”. In the face of comments about Cincinnati’s conservatism, she would fiercely defend her hometown for its relatively safe environment; the beautiful hills; the lovely winding Ohio River; the city’s history as a safe haven for slaves braving the Underground Railroad to “freedom”; and ironically, the city’s warm Southern flavor. This Cincinnatian has been writing since she was about seven years old and says, “I’d jot down little stories about my family and playmates on anything I could find to write on! Old brown paper grocery sacks, the white card stock separating the pairs of nylon stockings in my mother’s lingerie drawer, the backs of discarded wrapping paper --- any blank paper space!” And that’s been her habit since the early 1950’s, to the extent that her home, her car, and every old purse and briefcase hold scraps of paper bearing storylines, poems, and book titles. Prior to this collection, her most recent projects include a novel, “Is There A Panther in the House” (1998) , and a collection of short stories, “Tales from Ms. Baby” (2001) --- the former now “languishing on the shelf” and the latter still awaiting publication.