This memoir was written by Diane Schoemperlen, an author, about her life between the years 2006-2012, when Diane was 51 and fell in love with a murderer who had spent 30 years in prison.
She met Shane at St. Vincent de Paul, where hot meals were served. He was brought there from the prison with an escort, to be the dishwasher.
While Shane was spending time in prison, she had been living with her son and writing, traveling to book events, and doing the things that she enjoyed.
When Diane told her friend that she was falling in love with Shane, her friend said, "How can you be so smart in your writing and so stupid in real life?" And that is what the readers of this memoir felt as they read. I certainly did. Diane tried to explain, in great detail, how and why this happened. She wrote the memoir ten years after meeting Shane and added immense detail! Every thought, every emotion! I tried to skim through the minutiae of her daily life, but had to backtrack because I really love Diane's writing. Every sentence is stunning. She makes such effort to help the reader make sense of the situation. She realized that she had 'wanted to be wanted, needed to be needed'. And Shane surely was 'needy'!
At the beginning of the relationship, Shane told Diane that his happiest memories were of the times he and his second wife were reading together in the same room, not talking, just reading, and he'd never felt so peaceful in his entire life. Diane wrote, "Perhaps this is all I really want: someone I can read with, not talking, not touching, not interacting, just reading separately but still together."
But, of course, when they finally did get to live together, "the companionable literary silence" did not take place- anything but!
She writes in detail about the prison system and is very critical of the Harper government's 'Tough on Crime' policies.
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