When Katie Wakes: A Memoir - Connie May Fowler (Kindle)

Have I told you lately that I love Connie May Fowler? I suppose I have. Are you tired of hearing it yet? Are you going to break down and read something she has written? As my civic duty, I must link you back to some of my reviews of her novels that you may have missed…Sugar Cage, Remembering Blue, and Before Women Had Wings. You may be surprised to hear that after I waded my way through the dark hallows of “Sashenka” and “Say You’re One of Them”, I reached for Connie’s memoir about her life as a battered woman as an uplifting change of pace. This was no mistake though. Everything this woman writes, even the dark stuff, is a special treat.

Her prose is amazingly easy to read. At times, she brings the real Florida, the one beyond the walls of Disney, to life. She describes it almost to the point where you can smell the humidity, the sea air, and the local fish camp. Other times she will tell heartbreaking tales of prejudice, abuse, spirituality, and of a phoenix-like rising up from the ashes of dysfunction. She is able to give us these gifts because of her own personal ghosts and demons, combined with her humility, creativity and goodness of heart.

As with most memoirs, this one must have taken a huge amount of courage to write. Her first stab at finding closure was her early novel “Before Woman Had Wings”, which was very close to being autobiographical. But through the support of a loving spouse and her loyal dog, Katie, and years of healing, she has bared her soul to us with this novel.

Connie is the third generation of battered women in her family, a difficult pattern of enabling behavior from which to break free. Connie suffered physical and mental abuses from her mother and father that have instilled her belief that she can never be worthy of love, never be a good enough daughter/friend/wife, never be beautiful. Predictably, as a young adult, she enters into a relationship with a local celebrity has-been, thirty years her senior, who is addicted to alcohol, abusive, jobless, and a complete ass and waste of skin. The description of this toad’s character made my skin crawl. I also wanted to personally beat the crap out of him:

“His method of schooling me is harsh, unkind even. And though I resent it, I cannot dissolve the feeling that I have brought this curse on myself, that I was born helpless and ignorant, and that he is simply fulfilling a cosmic will. For instance, just last night he accused me again of being a stupid, ungrateful c***. My mind, as it always does in the heat of this accusation, split in half. In a single instant, one side of my brain thought ‘Yes, you’re absolutely right. I deserve your wrath. Go ahead. Beat me. Please. Lay bare my shame.’ But the other side shouted, ‘Ungrateful for what? Doing your laundry? Paying your bills? Cooking your meals?’”

Through the adoption of her lab Katie, a new, empowering editorial job, new friends, getting braces to fix her buck teeth, and meeting Mika, the love of her life, she begins to gain the self-confidence to walk away:

“When Katie wakes, the night will have vanished. And we will leave.”

I found myself cheering for this lovable, human woman. You want the best for her, and you know she’s going to get it. Today she, with her beautiful teeth, lives with Mika and her various pets up in the panhandle in Paradise (at least until hurricane season) near my favorite vacationing spot, St. George Island. I follow her blog, on which occasionally she will post. Just recently, she wrote a very touching tribute to her dog Katie, now in doggie heaven, for being her lifeline in the worst time of her life. The dog that slept by her side, even on the nights when they were on the kitchen floor, locked in to avoid a beating. The dog that even accompanied Connie and Mika on their honeymoon. As she says in the book, “How does one repay the loyalty, the goodness, the love of a dog?”

5 out of 5 stars