Based on a True Story Expanded & Updated 2nd Edition Written by: Lisa Furtado Editor: Trista Di Genova Text & Cover Copyright© Lisa Furtado Published June 11, 2011 Lisa Furtado's HER APPARITIONS & OTHER HUMAN LONGINGS focuses on the psychological responses of Fatima, a young high school graduate from the American Midwest and the daughter of a distant American military commander who senses failure in her search for meaning. Fatima discovers at an early age the hollowness at the core of her parents' self-denial and aspires to something more genuine. She is elated by the news of being accepted to an Ivy League University, only to find out that her family is gravely in debt and that she will not be able to follow her dream. Against her parents' wishes she escapes her small town and moves out to the city where she attempts to pay for her education independently. Soon she finds herself working as a part time sales woman, relying on food banks and becomes involved in an abusive relationship. Due to her brother Azel's tragic death, she returns home to the American Midwest for his funeral. Soon afterward, she meets his art teacher Laurence, who is twenty years older, and she is convinced that she has found her soul mate. Desperate to see him again, she later leaves America to look for him while he is backpacking across Asia. Spanning three continents and an entire history of caste, class exile and dislocation, Apparitions and Other Human Longings is an exploration of the deceitful bargains that make up an identity. Her search begins amidst the emptiness of an unnamed American city, moves to a rewarding career as an orphanage caretaker in Cambodia and, finally, to a decaying British colony in India where she finds joy she will then be forced to betray. Atheists, bigots, angels, and a cast of believers and Jungian archetypes dramatize throughout this coming of age allegory. Fatima is disillusioned by the American dream that was originally about freedom and the pursuit of happiness. But how does Fatima create meaning in a world of moral decay? Fatima tells her story while being committed into a mental hospital in Ho Chi Min, Vietnam during the 1980's based on a true story. "Lisa Furtado is a talented writer. She’s created an exceedingly interesting and powerful work that presses the idea of identity from cross cultural encounters in a way that it is both unique and affecting." (Review: Lynn Baer) "Lisa Furtado’s debut novel is a gripping account of one woman’s valiant attempt to change the world for the better, but whose fundamentally optimistic nature is darkened and eventually overcome by a combination of self-imposed starvation, drug experimentation and sudden penury while on the path of self-realization in Southeast Asia. Fatima’s extreme empathy for war victims and the downtrodden of the world spurs the feverish invention in her mind of angels, apparitions and hallucinations, representing our conscience as a society and ultimately the heroine’s downfall. Both a disturbing and uplifting story, this tale has no end of surprising turns, and unveils the mysteries in a human heart and soul desperately striving for world peace." (Review: Lone Wolf Press) The details are so thorough, so intimate, so graphic, so sensory. Lisa Furtado has drawn a lot from personal experience rather than the kind of flat writing that draws from other readings or from "TV" experience.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.