The Notebooks of Honora Gorman

Book excerpt: Not a love story—and yet a story of love. Love for a city, the artist’s way, and dreams. When the indomitable, though introverted, Honora Gorman moves to New York City to pursue the writer’s path, she is both awed and overwhelmed by the city’s beauty and energy. Yet she’s convinced that this is the place where her true self will finally emerge. Her beloved notebooks will chronicle her at-long-last journey. Over the course of several decades, her path often veers and detours as she stumbles over the obstacles of jobs, love, places to live, growing older, and the sense that time is running out. Yet pushing her ever forward is the exuberant persistence of storytelling—her “conversation with life”—and her do-or-die determination to stay true to her dreams. Will she triumph in the end? Are such dreams attainable? The result is the fanciful story of Honora’s writing life woven together with fairytales, whimsy, and wonder.