Memoirs of a Crone

Memoirs of a Crone deals with the reflections of an older woman as she nears the end of her life. As she reviews her life and takes a mental and spiritual accounting of all that she has done and left undone, she steps back to gain perspective. Evangeline Sable was many things and wore many faces through the more than seventy years of her life. Hers was a lifelong struggle to blend the facets of her personality and reconcile the conflicting aspects of her self into a more or less seamless whole. Evangeline sees herself through the prism of her life as a young girl, an immigrant who is destined to be forever different from those in the society which never embraces her completely. Later, in her roles as a wife and mother she struggles to further shape her identity along the expected paths of society. When tragedy strikes, all the carefully constructed aspects of her life crumble and she is left with the remains and with the opportunity to build something new. Slowly her life takes a turn and she discovers parts of herself so far unrecognized. Her emotional and spiritual struggle embody the journey that everyone must traverse to live a complete life.

Judith Alapi Higgins was born in Budapest, Hungary under the Russian occupation that followed World War II. Her family escaped from Hungary after the 1956 Revolution, immigrated to New York State, and eventually settled in Saranac Lake, in the Adirondacks. She developed an appreciation of her new language while earning degrees in psychology at Indiana University and counseling at Notre Dame. Since graduation she has written several short stories and four novels, three of which have been previously published. Her stories have also been published in literary magazines and e-magazines, and are now available in a collection entitled "Gold Pieces". She currently lives in Florida with her husband and adorable Pomeranian, Piper.