Join Carla Malden, author of the poignant memoir, AfterImage: A Brokenhearted Memoir of a Charmed Life (Globe Pequot), as she virtually tours the blogosphere in May 2011 on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!
About Carla Malden
Carla Malden grew up in Los Angeles, California. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from U.C.L.A. with a Bachelor of Arts in English and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society for her academic achievement. She worked extensively in the film business, both in production and development.
With her husband, filmmaker Laurence Starkman, she wrote twelve feature screenplays; they also served as rewrite guns-for-hire. The team of Malden & Starkman wrote and produced the short romantic comedy Whit & Charm, which screened at eight major film festivals, including The Hamptons, and won several awards. They also wrote and created a series of Cine Golden Eagle Award-winning Art History films produced in association with The Detroit Institute of Art and The National Gallery.
Along with her father, Academy Award-winning actor Karl Malden, Carla co-authored his critically acclaimed memoir, When Do I Start?, published by Simon & Schuster.
AfterImage: A Brokenhearted Memoir of a Charmed Life delivers a fiercely personal account of her battling the before and surviving the after of losing her husband to cancer. It offers an alert for an entire generation: this is not your mother’s widowhood.
Carla Malden lives in Brentwood, California where she is currently completing her first novel as well as a children’s book illustrated by her daughter, Cami Starkman.
Visit her website at www.carlamalden.com.
About AfterImage
Afterimage. It’s the ghost image that continues to appear, even after the source has faded away. It’s different from having a flashbulb catch you unaware when you’re having your picture taken. That leaves you momentarily blinded, violet and yellow dots kaleidoscoping in front of you. An afterimage is subtler, but more persistent, more enduring, more beguiling. Especially the afterimage that imprints itself on your heart. The one that occurs when your husband has died.
As a generation, we declared ourselves forever young. We assumed it our life’s work to brand every stage of human experience with our own particular stamp. How did we get to widowhood so quickly? Too quickly — while we weren’t looking, while we were still busy trying to figure out how to be grown-ups.
AfterImage is, at its core, a love story, as all real stories of loss must be. It is a story not solely about grief. It’s about battling the before and surviving the after, and dabbling in madness along the way. It is about the small moments that constitute a life well-lived. It is in those moments of human connection that we can search for gratitude through grief.
AfterImage is a story of love more than loss, memory more than sorrow, life more than death. It is a personal story. It’s my story.
Watch the Trailer!
Click here for Part Two!
Here’s what critics are saying about AfterImage!
“I’ve spent my professional life telling stories. AFTERIMAGE does exactly that and touches us where we live. It is compelling, moving, raw — with moments of surprising humor. I try to leave my audiences with meaningful and enduring images from my movies. That’s exactly what Carla Malden achieves with her newest book.” — Michael Douglas
“Carla Malden traces the awful journey of her young husband’s illness and death with such precision and care, expressing the emotion between the exhilaration of hope and the darkness of reality so powerfully, that her eloquence turns grief into poetry and enlightenment.” — Blythe Danner
“Carla Malden’s memoir about her husband and screenwriting partner Laurence Starkman is a haunting story of love and loss, and a demonstration of the courage required to put a broken life together again.” — Susan Cooper, author of The Dark is Rising
“All I can say is WOW!!! I read for a living which means I consume over 50 books a year just to prep for my show. Never has one made me cry until I read this manuscript. Although this is a book that will tug at your heart, it is like the tug on a fishing line when you know you’ve got a big one. I can’t wait to share it with others. I’d be honored to have author Carla Malden as a guest on my show. This is more than a book, it’s a blessing for anyone who reads it.” — Barry Kibrick, Producer and Host: Between the Lines
Emotionally raw from start to finish, the story . . . also celebrates a rare and profound love that transcended death. A brutally candid memoir of the ‘all-consuming and profoundly uncomplicated’ power of grief.” —Kirkus Reviews
Carla Malden’s AFTERIMAGE VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR ‘10 will officially begin on May 2 and end on May 27 ’11. Please contact Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife@yahoo.com if you are interested in hosting and/or reviewing her book or click here to use the form. Thank you!
Visit Carla’s official tour page here to find out where she’ll be touring!
Beyond the Books 