A Brush with Darkness

Book excerpt: When Lisa Fittipaldi went blind at the age of forty-seven, she descended into a freefall of anger and denial that lasted for two years. In this moving memoir, she paints a vivid picture of the perceptual and emotional darkness that accompanied her vision loss, and her arduous journey back into the sighted world through mastery of the principles of art and color. The challenge of a child's watercolor set, thrown down like a gauntlet by her frustrated husband, opened the door to a new life. "I truly feel that unless blindness had toppled the carefully maintained edifice I called my life, there is no way that I would be the kinder, more fulfilled person I am today," Lisa writes.--From publisher description.