Description
Knowing where your scars come from doesn't make them go away. When Jackie Shannon Hollis marries Bill, a man who does not want children, she joyfully commits to a childless life. But soon after the wedding, she returns to the family ranch in rural Oregon and holds her newborn niece. Jackie falls deep into baby love and longing and begins to question her decision. As she navigates the overlapping roles of wife, daughter, aunt, sister, survivor, counselor, and friend, she explores what it really means to choose a different path. This Particular Happiness delves into the messy and beautiful territory of what we keep and what we abandon to make the space for love.
Distribution of early galleys (starting in fall 2018) and ARCs (starting spring 2019) to media outlets, reviewers, bloggers, magazines, and key booksellers and librarians
Reviews targeting Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, Booklist, The Bookforum, O: The Oprah Magazine, People, and others
Coverage targeting women's lifestyle publications, especially those that have a history of reporting on childless and childfree topics
Advertising including Booktrib's newspaper book column (circ. 10,000), PNBA Holiday Catalog (circ. nearly 1 million), SIBA's Lady Banks' Bookshelf, and regional direct-to-reader advertising
Library outreach including author appearances at the Washington Library Association and Oregon Library Association combined conference (April 2019) and ALA in Washington, D.C. (June 2019) Bookseller outreach, including ABA Advance Access, PNBA appearance in Oct. 2019, and galley mailings to booksellers who have enjoyed other titles
Pacific Northwest tour with a focus on bookstores, libraries, local and reading series
Other appearances in the works for New York, Chicago, Arizona, and Idaho
International events possible in London, Switzerland, and Scotland, as Jackie visits family friends and builds connections with overseas non-parenting groups
Regional coverage targeting Portland-area media, including the Oregonian, Portland Mercury, Portland Monthly, Portland Tribune, Eugene Register-Guard, Willamette Week, KBOO's "Between the Covers," and OPB's State of Wonder Other coverage targeting The Rumpus, Entropy Magazine, Huff Post, Fiction Writers Review, Writing Under Pressure, Lit Reactor, and more
Conversations with women about their childfree choices planned for the author's website
Author will write and pitch childless essays to HuffPost, Bustle, Narratively and others
Excerpts of This Particular Happiness targeted to magazines and websites
Book club outreach with a focus on women's book clubs
Author interviews: radio, TV, print, and online venues
NetGalley, Edelweiss, and Goodreads ARC giveaways
Social media including blog appearances, excerpts, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
Promotions on author's website, jackieshannonhollis.com, and the publisher's website, forestavenuepress.com
Publicity and promotion in conjunction with author's speaking engagements
About the Author
Jackie Shannon Hollis, a lifelong Oregonian, resides with her husband in a home her friends call the tree house. Her education and work as a counselor pushed her to hold up the mirror to her own self. In addition to thinking she would be a mother, she once dreamed of being a June Taylor dancer or a racecar driver.
Reviews
"This Particular Happiness, is a deeply moving story about Jackie Shannon Hollis's decades-long yearning to have a child-and her complicated decision not to. But it's also about so much more than that. With honesty, generosity, precision and insight, Hollis writes the story of her life-from her girlhood in rural Oregon, where she both broke and followed the rules, to her hard-earned self-acceptance at middle age. This Particular Happiness is a gloriously wise memoir about one woman's unexpected path to becoming."
-Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
"This deeply engaging memoir wrestles with one of the most important questions of all: Why do we want what we want? Jackie Shannon Hollis explores how her own desires have been shaped by a culture that celebrates 'mother' more than any other role for women, and the possibilities that open up when she chooses not to play the role. A vibrant, absorbing, intimate book."
-Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks
"We all know that having a child changes everything, but so, too, does not having one, and in Hollis's brave, moving memoir, she explores the bliss, the yearning, the making peace with a life she and her partner chose (and didn't choose), and how happiness takes on shapes we can never imagine. The perfect book for anyone contemplating motherhood-or not!"
--Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
"This Particular Happiness examines the particularly female journey-how and where do we make room for love? And whether lover, wife, mother, or daughter, how can we be our most authentic selves? Jackie Shannon Hollis explores this rich terrain with clarity and courage, in spare and lovely prose evocative of the high plains landscape and fertile farmland she hails from."
-Jennie Shortridge, author of Love Water Memory
"An ideal memoirist. Her prose is honest and open; she presents herself, with all her shortcomings, in the same direct light as her other characters."
The Oregonian
"Jackie Shannon Hollis takes a topic that is typically whispered about and stares at it unflinchingly: a woman's decision whether or not to have children. She questions the cultural conditioning (told by movies, television, and our families), along with her own biological and emotional responses, that a childless woman is failing to fulfill her destiny. What she excavates during this psychological dig is the truth that what makes any woman's life successful is the woman herself. A powerful book for both genders and any sexual orientation."
-Kate Carroll de Gutes, author of The Authenticity Experiment
"Sit down. Make tea. Hold This Particular Happiness by Jackie Shannon Hollis in your hands and read it slowly because she has written you a love letter. Maybe the intimacy in this prose comes from the tender way she observes. Maybe it's the lyrical prose flexing, revealing the complicated choices one couple makes under the pressures of small towns, big events, changing times, and the relentless pursuit of understanding. Surely, it's her writing that captures her wanting that is as open as the wheat country that formed her. In this love letter, you will find your own 'beautiful ache.'"
-Kate Gray, author of Carry the Sky
"In This Particular Happiness, Jackie mines the depths of who she is and how she wants to be in this complicated world. She doesn't settle for the obvious path, and even though there's some disappointment and heartbreak, she learns how to love and be loved in just the way she wants. This book is a celebration of living life using your own damn map."
-Yuvi Zalkow, author of A Brilliant Novel in the Works
"This Particular Happiness claims an important place in the conversation about what it means to be female, especially a female who doesn't follow the script written by a traditional rural family. Written in honest and intimate chapters, this stunning debut memoir is ultimately a love letter to the power of choice. It is sure to be a must read for every young woman contemplating a childless future, and a few older women wishing they could be granted a do-over."
-Sheila Hamilton, author of All the Things We Never Knew
"This Particular Happiness is the eloquent unfolding of Jackie Shannon Hollis's lifelong understanding of and relationship to her own body: what it could do for her, how it could be used against her, and, ultimately, how she claimed it as her own. Her prose is both achingly beautiful and precise, underscoring the journey of discovering integrity to oneself, and the promise of true love."
--Liz Prato, author of Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawaii
"This book drew me in from the very first scene and gave me what I want in a memoir: the opportunity to see inside a very particular experience as well as to ponder big questions. What blend of family, culture, and personality inform our expectations? What do we seek from love and intimacy? How do we build defenses against trauma? How do we change? Hollis writes with a clarity and rhythm that makes the reading easy going even as she covers difficult and complex territory. The artful interweaving of storylines and time periods reveals a hard-won wisdom. Any person who has wondered about the path not taken-especially as it relates to child-rearing-will find themselves riveted."
-Zoe Zolbrod, author of The Telling
"Jackie Shannon Hollis's This Particular Happiness doesn't keep secrets. It's bare-naked honest. What a relief. Another sparkling moment of honesty, what we need, what we crave, what we try to remember."
-Leanne Grabel, author of Brontosaurus: Memoir of a Sex Life
Book Information
ISBN 9781942436393
Author Jackie Shannon Hollis
Format Paperback
Page Count 294
Imprint Forest Avenue Press
Publisher Forest Avenue Press
Weight(grams) 408g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 18mm
About the Author
Jackie Shannon Hollis, a lifelong Oregonian, resides with her husband in a home her friends call the tree house. Her education and work as a counselor pushed her to hold up the mirror to her own self. In addition to thinking she would be a mother, she once dreamed of being a June Taylor dancer or a racecar driver.
Reviews
"This Particular Happiness, is a deeply moving story about Jackie Shannon Hollis's decades-long yearning to have a child-and her complicated decision not to. But it's also about so much more than that. With honesty, generosity, precision and insight, Hollis writes the story of her life-from her girlhood in rural Oregon, where she both broke and followed the rules, to her hard-earned self-acceptance at middle age. This Particular Happiness is a gloriously wise memoir about one woman's unexpected path to becoming."
-Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
"This deeply engaging memoir wrestles with one of the most important questions of all: Why do we want what we want? Jackie Shannon Hollis explores how her own desires have been shaped by a culture that celebrates 'mother' more than any other role for women, and the possibilities that open up when she chooses not to play the role. A vibrant, absorbing, intimate book."
-Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks
"We all know that having a child changes everything, but so, too, does not having one, and in Hollis's brave, moving memoir, she explores the bliss, the yearning, the making peace with a life she and her partner chose (and didn't choose), and how happiness takes on shapes we can never imagine. The perfect book for anyone contemplating motherhood-or not!"
--Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
"This Particular Happiness examines the particularly female journey-how and where do we make room for love? And whether lover, wife, mother, or daughter, how can we be our most authentic selves? Jackie Shannon Hollis explores this rich terrain with clarity and courage, in spare and lovely prose evocative of the high plains landscape and fertile farmland she hails from."
-Jennie Shortridge, author of Love Water Memory
"An ideal memoirist. Her prose is honest and open; she presents herself, with all her shortcomings, in the same direct light as her other characters."
The Oregonian
"Jackie Shannon Hollis takes a topic that is typically whispered about and stares at it unflinchingly: a woman's decision whether or not to have children. She questions the cultural conditioning (told by movies, television, and our families), along with her own biological and emotional responses, that a childless woman is failing to fulfill her destiny. What she excavates during this psychological dig is the truth that what makes any woman's life successful is the woman herself. A powerful book for both genders and any sexual orientation."
-Kate Carroll de Gutes, author of The Authenticity Experiment
"Sit down. Make tea. Hold This Particular Happiness by Jackie Shannon Hollis in your hands and read it slowly because she has written you a love letter. Maybe the intimacy in this prose comes from the tender way she observes. Maybe it's the lyrical prose flexing, revealing the complicated choices one couple makes under the pressures of small towns, big events, changing times, and the relentless pursuit of understanding. Surely, it's her writing that captures her wanting that is as open as the wheat country that formed her. In this love letter, you will find your own 'beautiful ache.'"
-Kate Gray, author of Carry the Sky
"In This Particular Happiness, Jackie mines the depths of who she is and how she wants to be in this complicated world. She doesn't settle for the obvious path, and even though there's some disappointment and heartbreak, she learns how to love and be loved in just the way she wants. This book is a celebration of living life using your own damn map."
-Yuvi Zalkow, author of A Brilliant Novel in the Works
"This Particular Happiness claims an important place in the conversation about what it means to be female, especially a female who doesn't follow the script written by a traditional rural family. Written in honest and intimate chapters, this stunning debut memoir is ultimately a love letter to the power of choice. It is sure to be a must read for every young woman contemplating a childless future, and a few older women wishing they could be granted a do-over."
-Sheila Hamilton, author of All the Things We Never Knew
"This Particular Happiness is the eloquent unfolding of Jackie Shannon Hollis's lifelong understanding of and relationship to her own body: what it could do for her, how it could be used against her, and, ultimately, how she claimed it as her own. Her prose is both achingly beautiful and precise, underscoring the journey of discovering integrity to oneself, and the promise of true love."
--Liz Prato, author of Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawaii
"This book drew me in from the very first scene and gave me what I want in a memoir: the opportunity to see inside a very particular experience as well as to ponder big questions. What blend of family, culture, and personality inform our expectations? What do we seek from love and intimacy? How do we build defenses against trauma? How do we change? Hollis writes with a clarity and rhythm that makes the reading easy going even as she covers difficult and complex territory. The artful interweaving of storylines and time periods reveals a hard-won wisdom. Any person who has wondered about the path not taken-especially as it relates to child-rearing-will find themselves riveted."
-Zoe Zolbrod, author of The Telling
"Jackie Shannon Hollis's This Particular Happiness doesn't keep secrets. It's bare-naked honest. What a relief. Another sparkling moment of honesty, what we need, what we crave, what we try to remember."
-Leanne Grabel, author of Brontosaurus: Memoir of a Sex Life
Book Information
ISBN 9781942436393
Author Jackie Shannon Hollis
Format Paperback
Page Count 294
Imprint Forest Avenue Press
Publisher Forest Avenue Press
Weight(grams) 408g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 18mm
