Book Talk with Jody Gelb: Author of She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy In-Person
Book Talk with Jody Gelb
Author of She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy: a micro memoir
Join us for a book talk with actor and author of the new memoir She May be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy, Jody Gelb! Jody will give a reading from the book, followed by a discussion and Q&A. There will also be a book giveaway, where four lucky winners will go home with a copy of the book.
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About the book
Everything was going right in the delivery room until, suddenly, it wasn't. The baby's brain was damaged; the new mother was unprepared for the life she and her family would now be living. In dense, lyrical prose, Jody Gelb pays tribute to her daughter's short life. She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy is a marvel of compression and potency. Gelb lays her experience bare in the full range of its emotional complexity, from profound suffering to ecstatic joy. It is a mother-daughter memoir scrubbed of sentiment. She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy isn't so much a book as the naked truth of being human in this imperfect world.
“Jody Gelb has written a book so rare and elegant and beautiful that I don’t even know how to categorize it: Essay? Poetry? Memoir? I think I might just call it a ‘monument.’ What a stunning work of art, of truth, and of love.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love
"A poignant and a refreshingly restrained memoir… As she thoughtfully and understatedly explores the challenges of parenting a disabled child, Gelb also clearly reveals the profoundly transformative power of love.” — Kirkus Reviews
Author Bio
Jody Gelb has a forty-year career acting on stage and screen. She has portrayed roles in the Tony Award-winning Broadway plays The Who’s Tommy, Titanic, Big River, and Wicked, among others. Gelb also played Joan of Arc’s mother in the David Byrne rock opera Joan of Arc: Into the Fire at The Public Theater in New York and was a featured player in the world premiere of Shel Silverstein’s Wild Life with Julie Hagerty, Henderson Forsythe, William H. Macy, and Raynor Scheine. On television, she has appeared in guest roles in Gunplay, Law & Order, and Dr. Death. Gelb now follows the career of her daughter, Dora Jar, as she tours the USA and the world as a singer-songwriter.