Offered in Secret

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Product Details

Weight: 17.50 oz

347 pgs.

I’ve organized the papers left behind, most likely never meant for anyone to read. I’ve built my mother’s timeline out of the detritus, a map of her existence. Seeing when and where it superimposes onto mine, how it diverges. And now I’m off to follow this map. See where it leads. The journey is an investigation in the spirit of a YouTube unboxing video. But rather than the latest gaming console or collectible figurine, what I’m unboxing is a person, a life, and that life’s place within my own.

In the spirit of Eat, Pray, Love, such moments of intimacy and soulfulness fill Offered In Secret, a new memoir that invites readers into the extraordinary eight-day journey of a man trying to understand his mother after ignoring her death for years.

“The ashes were gathering dust, as I say,” Connelly chuckles. “I had a mother who hadn’t raised me with any rituals and a three-pound box of remains.” He needed a reason to dispose of the remains – a real reason. “My Catholic wife needed closure, but I always saw funerals as ‘going through the motions.’ If I was going to do it, I’d have to do it my way. My wife kept asking me where my mother Carolyn would want to be buried. I realized I didn’t know her well enough to have that answer.”

Setting off on an 1,800-mile sojourn, Connelly visits every place he had an honest, concrete memory of the woman to find that perfect spot. Armed with a handful of photos, letters, and news clippings, he discovers a woman he had the chance, but not the inclination, to know when she was alive. And unlocks some secrets along the way.

Praise for Offered In Secret:

“Connelly takes us on a poignant, disarming, and often funny literary journey exploring loss, family loyalty, and the buried roots of the parent-child bond.”

—Eric Lichtblau, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist, author of The Nazis Next Door

“For anyone who has ever had a mother… Part family memoir, part investigative odyssey, Offered in Secret is the story of one son’s reluctant quest to find the ideal final resting place for his mother’s ashes. Connelly’s humorous and heart-wrenching narrative brings readers along for the ride for his often uneasy adventures as he confronts old family friends, leery strangers, and, ultimately, himself. Finely wrought and affecting, Offered in Secret reminds readers that in seeking to honor the memory of those who are gone, we might just unearth a little redemption for ourselves.”

—Denise Kiernan, New York Times bestselling author of The Girls of Atomic City, The Last Castle, and We Gather Together

“Stuart Connelly’s ability to string words together is much like the person he is – candid, real, honest and interesting.”

—Crystal Zevon, author of I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon

“Much more than a memoir, this is a sweet, wry, clear-eyed retelling of a story that will resonate with just about anyone who’s taken a road trip with family. I can only hope it encourages all of us to consider our loved ones with as much honesty and care.”

—Celeste Headlee, NPR anchor, author of Speaking of Race

About the Author

A graduate of Syracuse University’s prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Stuart Connelly has written speeches for Fortune 500 executives, reported for daily newspapers, edited a national magazine, run an advertising agency, and – at a career low point – once wrote a handful of jokes for the White House.

His work has been taught at the Algonkian Art of Fiction Writer’s Workshop alongside such luminaries of the craft as Mark Twain, Flannery O’Connor, Franz Kafka, and Raymond Carver.

His journalism has appeared in New Yorker, USA Today, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Huffington Post and Al Jazeera America. Stuart made his feature film directorial debut with the 2013 thriller The Suspect.

He currently divides his time between New York City and rural Pennsylvania, which is of course not as useful as multiplying it.

also by stuart connelly

Novels

Indelible

This Island, Made of Bone

Haven House

Natural Selection

Non-Fiction

Behind The Dream: The Making of the Speech That Transformed a Nation

Uprising: Understanding Attica, Revolution, and the Incarceration State

Last of the Lions

Screenplays

The Suspect

American Gothic

48 Blocks