MINUS ME

A poignant, deliciously hilarious novel about the bonds of marriage, the burdens of maternal love, and the courage to face mortality.

Is there such a thing as a truly charmed life? When a small-town Maine woman's life is turned upside down by a mortal challenge, her own happiness and sanity are put to the ultimate test. Passamoquoddy, Maine, is the quintessential small town. And Annie is the quintessential small-town girl. She's happily married to her handsome, charming, but comically helpless childhood sweetheart, Sam, with whom she owns and operates Annie's, home to the legendary Paul Bunyan Special Sandwichtheir "nutritionally challenged continual source of income, marital harmony, and local fame." Although virtually abandoned by Ursula, her itinerant actress mother, Annie finds solace and joy in taking care of Sam. But into their charmed life comes the specter of a grim medical diagnosis for Annieand the overwhelming challenge of finding a way to help Sam go on without her. Annie decides to leave Sam step-by-step instructions about how to live his life, and even plans for her own replacement in his heart and their bed. Things seems to be proceeding smoothly, until the unexpected appearance of Ursula, whose enduring local celebrity threatens to derail her plans. As Ursula wreaks her own brand of chaos all over town, Annie desperately searches for a way to grapple with her own illness and see to Sam's well-being. Born in Maine and named for two grandmothers, Mamie and Eva (pronounced May-Meeve), Bangor's "other" writer (after Stephen King), Mameve Medwed is the author of five novels, Mail, Host Family, The End of an Error, How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life. (2007 Massachusetts Book Award Honors in Fiction) and Of Men and Their Mothers. She has published essays in three anthologies: How to Spell Chanukah (Algonquin), My Bookstore (Black Dog and Leventhal) and What My Mother Gave Me (Algonquin). Her short stories, essays, and book reviews have appeared in, among others, the New York Times, Gourmet, Yankee, Redbook, Playgirl, The Boston Globe, Ascent, The Missouri Review, Confrontation, Newsday and The Washington Post.