Commune of Women, by Suzan Still
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Commune of Women, by Suzan Still
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"COMMUNE OF WOMEN is a riveting read. The characters are diverse and their stories will find a place in your heart. From Betty’s fascination with fake flowers to Pearl’s horrifying and tragic life, there is something uplifting in how they found the strength to carry on. A nightmare situation and how the women came out stronger than when it began, along with compassion and the will to survive, Commune of Women is a captivating read that I highly recommend!” – Minding Spot “I very highly recommend this book. The writing is outstanding and the story is compelling with characters that are real and easy to relate to…. It’s entertaining, touching, and inspirational. It is full of drama, suspense, mystery, and even romance. This was the first book I have read by Suzan Still and I am definitely a fan!” – Life in Review “COMMUNE OF WOMEN is one book you do not want to miss…. It is an incredible tale that will stay with you long after you read the last word. Pick up Commune of Women and be prepared to laugh, cry and gasp.” – Single Titles “Wonderfully written…. All in all, Commune of Women, was extremely satisfying to read and I am honored to have been able to review this book.” – Simply Stacie On an ordinary Los Angeles morning, the lives of seven women are about to become inextricably entangled, as they converge upon LA International Airport for various purposes. Suddenly, the morning erupts into chaos, as black-clad terrorists charge into the terminal, guns blazing. As the concourse becomes a killing field, six of the women dodge a hail of bullets to find refuge in a tiny staff room. Betty, a Reseda housewife, Heddi, a Jungian analyst, Sophia, a rugged and savvy mountain woman, Erika, a top-level executive, Ondine, an artist just returning from France, and Pearl, an ancient bag lady, all traumatized or injured, barricade the door and cower down, hoping to survive. As four days drag by, their expectations of an early rescue dashed, the women find a way to dominate their panic and terror by telling their life stories. As their situation becomes increasingly grave, the women begin to reveal their most intimate secrets, as their stories descend deeper into the dark shadows of their lives–and they discover that part of survival is simply surviving one another. At the same time, in a similar small room close by, the sole female terrorist, dubbed simply X by her so-called Brothers, has the task of watching a bank of surveillance monitors. Apparently forgotten by her co-conspirators, she nevertheless is the best informed of the happenings in the outside world–happenings that are not easily understood. Why are the police and FBI so slow to respond? What has motivated this attack? Who are these terrorists and what do they want? And will the women survive to tell their tale? Answers to these questions slowly reveal the terrible web of conspiracy and deceit into which they all have fallen. But the most profound revelation of all is how each has betrayed herself.
Commune of Women, by Suzan Still - Amazon Sales Rank: #1380460 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-06-01
- Released on: 2015-06-01
- Format: Kindle eBook
Commune of Women, by Suzan Still About the Author Suzan Still lives in the foothills of Sierra Nevada mountains with her husband and an assortment of rescued fur children. She is the author of a debut novel, COMMUNE OF WOMEN.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Day OneLos Angeles International AirportLos Angeles, CaliforniaMonday, 8:37 AMErikaThe noise as Erika steps out of the cab is deafening. She’s screaming at Amelia, “Just call Dallas and tell them...” and the fucking phone cuts out. She spins around, hoping to pick up the signal again. It’ll take Amelia ten minutes to settle down and remember that she already knows what she’s supposed to tell the Dallas office. They went over it yesterday. Christ!The cabby’s on Mexican time. He’s taking her bag out of the trunk like he’s doing it underwater. She’s got forty minutes to dash through the terminal, get through fucking Homeland Security, and catch the flight to Berlin. Come on!Every loser in Creation is in her way. Why do most people look like genetic throwbacks? They mope along,looking dazed – no sense of direction; no focus. How do they manage to feed and clothe themselves? What must their sex lives be like? She’s like a shark among guppies. If she has to, she’ll bite her way through this sea of zombies!HeddiThe thing Heddi always hates about LAX is the frantic pace. Traffic swarms around entrances and parking spaces like bees around a disturbed hive. Once she’s run that gauntlet, dealing with the mess inside the terminals is a piece of cake.Thank God Betty insisted on driving her today. The thing with Hal has her so upset! And this Wellbutrin’s so strong she wouldn’t trust her own driving. Betty – big and solid as a navy-and-red mountain, her grip on the wheel like a strangler’s; her jaw, lost in a pudding-like sack of triple chins – is navigating the traffic like one of the Norns clutching the reins of the Car of Fate.She’s never let a patient drive her anywhere before and this is the first time she’s ever come to the airport to pick one up. Heddi has a special spot in her heart for this arrival. According to her own analyst, Dr. Copeland, Ondine represents some part of Heddi’s shadow which is why Heddi always finds her so marvelously aggravating.“Offer her particular hospitality,” Dr. Copeland advised her. “She has much to teach you.”The digital read-out of Arrivals says Flight 3742 from Paris is on time, probably taxiing up to Gate 34 at this very moment. Which means she has at least half an hour to use the loo and then read a few pages of the murder mystery that’s got her hooked – if she can hold Betty at bay – before she even has to start looking for Ondine in this mob. And to make herself suitably hospitable, whatever that might entail.BettyBetty never thought she’d be the kind of person who’d go to a shrink. She’s as normal as apple pie. Dish water. Laundry soap. Whatever. But things happen to you in this life; things you don’t expect and that are painful.That was a surprise. She grew up so normal and still that was no proof against suffering. During their last session, Heddi said that Betty survived her normality by staying unconscious – not, like, out cold, but by not really thinking about the things that were wrong. That’s why things got so crazy – because Bettywasn’t bringing any of the stuff to consciousness.Betty steals a sidelong glance at Heddi, so cool and aloof in her short blond do and pale blue silk pencil skirt that glints like surgical steel, so slender and self-contained, and she feels a shudder run through her. She’s not sure if it’s from pleasure at being of service to such a svelte, sophisticated creature, or from pure terror of her.At their last session, Heddi also said that Betty has made a fetish out of plastic flowers. She says Betty is living in a very primitive state of religiosity. That religio is the root word, meaning careful consideration of the dangers.“What dangers?” Betty asks.“The gods,” Heddi says. “The gods will have their way with us.”“Gods? I don’t believe in them.”“It doesn’t matter. They believe in you.”Betty doesn’t get it. She’s new at this. If her friend, Em, hadn’t sworn that this was the best thing for her to do right now to save her sanity, she’d quit. It’s all a mystery to Betty, but at least she’s up out of the BarcaLounger and doing something positive – if navigating L.A. traffic, especially LAX traffic, can be considered positive. It does kind of perk her up, getting her adrenaline going like this. And Heddi’s surely in no shape to drive. Betty’s never seen her so somber. Maybe it’s this mystery person who’s arriving that she’s thinking about.It doesn’t matter if Heddi doesn’t even say a word to her. All Betty wanted was to get out of her house before she took a butcher knife and drove it straight through her own heart.PearlEver since she lost her spot in front a Pop’s Diner, Pearl’s been a gypsy. She tried settin up at the pier, buteither the wind was too sharp or the sun got ta her. Then she tried a couple a blocks back from the ocean, by the Safeway. But people was too busy, bustlin in, bustlin out. Nobody paid her no nevermind.She went from a good, solid twenty-dollar day at Pop’s ta almost nothin. It’s been two weeks an Pearl purdy near starved ta death, til José come along, him an his cab.“Pearl, I been looking for you,” he says. “All over town.”José was one of Pop’s regulars, an he never stiffed her. Ever single time he put somethin in her can –sometimes a dollar, sometimes two, or even five. Always with a smile an a “Buenos dias, Madre.”Madre! Callin the laks a Pearl Mother! Well, if that don’t beat Hell!“What you are doing now, Pearl? Where you are sitting?”“José, I ain’t got no spot no more. Since Pop up an died on me, I’m double homeless. Ain’t got no home analso ain’t got no business establishment.”“Dis is turriblay.” He rattled off them r’s lak he’d got achill. “Terrible, Pearl. You got to come wit me.”“Whar we goin?”“I don’ know. You get in. We theenk about it.”“What bout mah chariot? Cain’t leave mah cart behind.”“You get in, Pearl. I poot eet een de trronk.”Pearl smiles at how these Mesicans can mangle the language. And sure enough, he hefts that damn thing in thar lak it warn’t nothin, an off they go. “Whar you takin me, José?”“I don’ know, Pearl. We got to theenk. How about de pier?”“Tried that. Most froze mah tush off.”“How about de shelter?”“Nope. Ain’t goin ta no shelter. If’n I gots ta sleep in the sand on the beach, I’ll do that. But I ain’t goin inta no shelter.”By now, theys out on the freeway. Don’t ax her which one, cuz she ain’t never drove a car in her life. She barely done rode in one. José is real quiet an Pearl’s thinkin he’s regrettin takin her up. But then he shouts, “I got it! Pearl, I know where you got to go! You have good business there.”“Whar?”“De airport!”“Now how the Hell am I gonna get ta the airport?”“I take you.”“Now listen, young man. I don’t need no one-day gig. I gots ta do this ever day.”“Jes. Jes, I understand. I take you every day.”“Are you crazy?”“No. Listen, Pearl. I got to go to de airport every day, anyways. That’s where most of my fares come from. I take you in de morning and pick you up, my last run at night.”Well, Pearl argued a piece, but José was so enthusiastic, she finally done give in an said she’d give it a try. It’s illegal as Hell, she’s sure. But the amazin part is, she’s made more in the first hour then she usually makes all day. She’s keepin a low profile. Hangin out mostly in the bathrooms. She cain’t ratly believe how many a them suckers they is. They gots more bathrooms then a pig’s got poop.Pearl figgered out rat away that she could take a paper towel an wipe the counter an the bowl, fore a lady washes her hands. She knows they laks ta plunk they purses down – an them wet spots jes gives em the shivers. Some jes brushes her off, but more often then not, they’ll dig in a pocket or a purse an hand her some change, or even a bill.Pearl cain’t hardly believe her good fortune. Only trouble is, she cain’t smoke her pipe. Other then that, thins is lookin real good.OndineWhen you lift off from Orly and climb above Paris, you can see the inner ring – the Périphérique, the freeway that follows the ancient fortifications of the city. It makes a huge mandala in the midst of the urban sprawl and confirms Ondine’s deeply held conviction that Paris is the Center of the Universe. And at its beating heart, on the tail of the Île de la Cité, the Great Mother is enthroned – Notre Dame Cathedral. That view never fails to bring tears to her eyes.Flying in over L.A., on the other hand, brings a different kind of tears to her eyes. It doesn’t matter that the full name of the city is La Ciudad de la Madre de Los Angeles. Somehow Our Lady, Mother of the Angels, has gotten squeezed out of the center of things – or asphyxiated by smog.Ondine gropes for her seat belt, as the jet angles down steeply over the web of freeways in final approach. She drags her maroon leather hobo bag from beneath the seat and rummages for her cosmetic bag, refreshes her lipstick, flicks pretzel crumbs off her pristine aqua lapel, pushes the usual errant lock of auburn hair back from her face and glances again out the window.There is no center here. No there out there, as they say. She’s diving down into an eye-smarting jumble. Into chaos.SophiaSophia had a dream last night, on the eve of her departure for Los Angeles. She dreamed she was flying.No plane around her; just her arms outstretched and the wind rushing over her. She simply rose up from her mountain cabin until she was up high enough to see the Pacific Ocean on her right and the white phalanx of the Sierra crest on her left. Her plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans flapped in the wind and her scuffed Red Wing work boots trailed behind her, weightlessly. Her hair arced out around her like long, gray wings. She just flew and flew. It was exhilarating.Which is a good thing because in actual fact she hates to fly. It raises her blood pressure until she thinks blood will squirt from her ears. And she hates Southern California even more than she hates flying. She loves the Earth. She loves all the creations of the Goddess, right down to the humblest nematode. But Southern California’s a wasteland, with all natural life suppressed under asphalt and buildings. If the conference on goddess cultures wasn’t too good to miss, she’d never have come.Sophia does like air terminals, though. She loves seeing the people arriving from foreign flights, especially: the women in saris, the men in turbans, the Africans with deep ritual scarifications on their cheeks, and the little huge-eyed children. Since her bus for Pasadena doesn’t leave for an hour, she’s decided to come over to the international terminal and get a dose of the exotic that simply never penetrates into the hills where she lives.She settles her denim derrière in a molded plastic chair and watches what must be a tour from China coming at her – several dozen Chinese, all talking too loudly in that nasally singsong and
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A group of little tales woven into a larger one. By Christi S. This book had alot of characters with a story to tell! I actually liked the individual stories and found them more entertaining overall. I had a problem with Pearl. She is hard to understand as you read it because the author writes her portion as you would hear her speak it. And that is the most backwoods, hickiest writing I have read to date. "Glad ta meetcha" and "hundert years" and "rat thar".Also, there is a chapter from Pearl's perspective where you don't know who she is talking to/about for a couple of pages and you feel lost for that whole chapter. I had to reread that portion knowing who it was to understand it.There was cliff hanger at the end regarding one of the women in the story and I wonder if that will be in a different book.I enjoyed the read and I would suggest it to my friends.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Loved this By Tile Diva I read a review of this book in our local paper, there mainly because the author was a local resident. What a great suspenseful read. Although maybe it needs some editing tweaks here and there, the story is gripping and breathtaking. I would like to see this story made into a full length movie. It is that good.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Great character study By Sundrop77 DESCRIPTIONSeven women from all walks of life become trapped for several days during a terrorist attack at LAX. Cut off from all outside communication and not knowing how or if they will be rescued, they resort to sharing personal stories as a means to distract themselves from succumbing to their fears.CONCEPT/PLOT - 5 starsThere are a lot of layers to this book, the topmost layer being that we all have things in common, even if cannot see these commonalities at first.Between the seven women, virtually all important variables were represented: different ethnicities, cultures, religious beliefs, upbringings, education levels, financial standing, and family histories. On the surface, the only thing these folks seemed to have in common with each other is that they were all women. Despite their vast differences and their initial judgments and distrusts, their predicament shined a light on their commonalities in a way that normally would not been seen.An underlying layer was politics and how people misrepresent themselves and exploit others for personal gain. This inclusion really rounded out the story and ends up playing an important role all on its own.WRITING STYLE/EXECUTION - 4 starsThe book is written in sections. Each section is introduced by the name of the woman whose point of view is being represented. In the beginning, the sections were short and it took some time to remember who was who. Over time though, each woman's section got longer and I was grateful for that. I enjoyed the stories and various perspectives. The fact that I could empathize with even character 'X' speaks volumes, as we are conditioned to hate "terrorists." Ms. Still did a wonderful job of allowing us to empathize with the characters yet still disagree with some of their actions.FORMATTING/EDITING - 5 starsPeople, cultures, locations, politics, and pyschology were all well-researched and explained. The book was well put together and polished.
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