Gina Rae Mitchell

Dancing With a Demon by Valerie Foster

Primary Genres: Eating Disorders / Mothers and Daughters

My rating: 5 0f 5 Stars

 

Synopsis from Amazon:

A mother’s love. A daughter’s battle. A family’s journey. What would you do if your child stopped eating? Dancing with a Demon is the true story of a mother searching for answers through the labyrinth of her daughter’s struggle with an often fatal and perpetually mysterious disease.

When author Valerie Foster’s teenaged daughter, Jenna, plunges into the dark world of anorexia nervosa, Valerie has to fight against a demon that threatens her daughter’s life and her own mental health. Her riveting narrative, along with Jenna’s revealing journal entries, explores the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship and how this disease affects one’s entire family.

For psychologists, educators, teens, and parents everywhere, Dancing with a Demon provides hope, understanding, and enlightenment.

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Dancing With a Demon by Valerie Foster

E-book Details

• File Size: 1658 KB
• Print Length: 272 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0692809368
• Publication Date: August 5, 2017
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B074G12LS3
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Word Wise: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Screen Reader: Supported
• Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Dancing With a Demon by Valerie Foster

Paperback Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Albion-Andalus Books (March 17, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0692809368
• ISBN-13: 978-0692809365
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces

Dancing with a DemonShop on Amazon

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My Review:

A mother’s story of love and life through anorexia.

As difficult as this book was to read, I can not imagine how difficult it was to write. I read the entire book in one sitting with my heart in my throat.

Dancing with a Demon chronicles the story of a mother’s battle to save her daughter’s life. Anorexia is indeed a demon of a disease that affects each person differently. This story bares the soul of what the entire family goes through, not just the afflicted one.

The story is told with grace and dignity. There are passages from both mother & daughter’s journals, adding poignancy to the story.

I was touched, horrified, and uplifted, all in the space of a few hours. As a mother of daughters, I felt every emotion while reading this book. I think everyone would benefit from reading Dancing with a Demon. It is a detailed look at anorexia and other mental illnesses. It is not a light-hearted story but one that needs to be told all the same.

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Comments are greatly appreciated. Please scroll to the bottom to find the comment section!

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   Valerie Stapleton Foster is an educator, public speaker, and the author of The Risk of Sorrow: Conversations with Holocaust Survivor, Helen Handler, as well as a short story, “Loss,” which was published in the River Poets Anthology. A recipient of the Shofar Zakhor award for Holocaust education, Valerie taught writing and literature for thirty years and currently holds an adjunct faculty position at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Arizona, teaching future teachers. She lives in Gilbert, AZ with her husband, Tom.

An interview with Valerie Foster, author of Dancing With a Demon

How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing since I was a little girl, and that’s a very long time! I wrote a silly song in first grade about pirates.

What inspired you to write in this genre?
I have written poetry, essay, short story, and technical writing. But my two books are memoirs. As a writing teacher for thirty years, I was always most moved by the truth in memoir or personal narrative pieces. My high school students found their own paths to truth and growth through writing their experiences. Then, following my own family’s journey with my daughter’s eating disorder, and not finding any other mother’s story out there, I knew I needed to be the one to write it.

In which genre does your life story belong?
Memoir, with an even dose of comedy and near-tragedy.

Do you have a set writing schedule?
With my first book, as a full-time teacher and mother of three teenagers, I could only steal early Sunday mornings to write, before the family woke up and took over my time. The first draft took me five years. I don’t have a set schedule, but I am my most creative and introspective in the early mornings.

Do you need silence to write or can you work in any environment?
I can write in any setting and often do. My laptop becomes my home station, and I’ve written in stolen minutes and hours at home, in libraries, outside, in coffee shops, and even visiting my son in Texas. And I checked into a hotel room when I absolutely had to meet a publishing deadline. When I get into a deep writing “zone,” I can look up to find that 3-4 hours have passed in a blink. I never leave the house without a small notebook, and when the idea for my since-published short story came to me, while getting into my car, I had to stop and capture it all right away.

If you could set up your perfect writing scenario, what would it involve?
Ah… Well, I would have an over-stuffed chair in a cozy room set in a forest in perfect weather. Like writer, Ann Morrow Lindberg in Gifts from the Sea, I would be granted a generous amount of time in complete solitude.

What is your most unusual writing quirk?
Don’t know if this is a quirk, but I absolutely love the labor of writing when I see it as verbal brush strokes of a painting or finding the perfect piece (word) for a jigsaw puzzle.

Were you an avid reader growing up?
Yes, I loved Nancy Drew books and then moved to more sophistication like Lord of the Flies. Reading led to my becoming an English teacher.

If you could form the ultimate writers’ group, which authors past or present would you invite to join you?
What a delicious thought. This is hard to narrow down since my world for thirty years was absorbed by classical authors in British Literature. But I would love to hang with Isabelle Allende, Pat Conroy, Virginia Woolf, Dave Eggers, Rebecca Wells, and to keep us laughing, David Sedaris!

Do you snack while writing and if so, what is your favorite snack?
Oh yeh! Morning? Coffee and coffee. Late afternoon? Snyder’s Honey Mustard Pretzel Pieces (once in a delicious while), along with wine or beer in moderation.

Who has influenced your writing the most?
The writers in my imaginary writers group have all left their mark on me. In addition, Stephen King, whose On Writing has sustained me. (But he would be too intimidating for me to let him join our group!)

Must you wear shoes to write?
Absolutely not. But I positively must wear comfy clothes.

Is there anything you would like my readers to know about you and your book?
Writing is a lonely sport and very hard work for us all. For me, I had to face my own truths and trust readers to find elements of our human connections in them. And I love hearing from readers!

Author’s contact info:

• Amazon
• Goodreads
• Website

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More reviews by Gina

• Dreams, Inc. by T.E. Mark
• Never Stop Running by Dr. Melissa Caudle
• Stroke Awareness – Guest Post by K.D. Basso, author of I’m a Little Brain Dead
• The Essence of Shade by Deborah Jean Miller

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