About this item
My dad used to be Abraham Lincoln. When I was six and learning to read, I saw his initials were A. B. E., Albert Baruch Edelman. ABE. That's when I knew. Mina Edelman believes that she and her family are the Lincolns reincarnated. Her main task for the next three months: to protect her father from assassination, her mother from insanity, and herself -- Willie Lincoln incarnate -- from death at age twelve.Apart from that, the summer of 1966 should be like any other. But Mina's dad begins taking Mina along to hear speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr in Chicago. And soon he brings the freedom movement to their own small town, with consequences for everyone.
About the Author
Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne) and the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins) , which won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction of Social Engagement (judged by Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, and contest founder Barbara Kingsolver) , Self Storage (Ballantine) , Delta Girls (Ballantine) , and My Life with the Lincolns (Henry Holt) , which received a Silver Nautilus Book Award and was chosen as a state wide read in Wisconsin. Her most recent books include the poetry collection, The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Press) the memoir, The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother's Suicide (Beacon Press) and the novel in poems, Many Restless Concerns: The Victims of Countess Bathory Speak in Chorus (A Testimony) (Black Lawrence Press) . Her essays, poems and short fiction have been widely published in venues such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Rumpus, Longreads, O, The Oprah Magazine, and more, and have received numerous honors, including a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award, and Notable mentions in The Best American Essays 2016 and 2019. She teaches in the BA and low residency MFA programs at Sierra Nevada College, where she was named Distinguished Visiting Professor/Writer in Residence, and the low residency MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Gayle served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014 and was deemed a Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine. She lives in North Lake Tahoe.
