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Published Oct 2016
288 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
The remarkable life of a woman born to wealth, who leaves society to make her own singular path.
Imagine a world of Gatsby-esque glamor, opulence, and cultural prestige, of exclusive parties and elegant dinners, of literary luminaries including Somerset Maugham, Daphne du Maurier, Irving Stone, and Theodore Roethke, of Manhattan townhouses and country estates. This is a world where children are raised by nannies, tutors, chauffeurs, gardeners, butlers, maids, and assorted staff, sent off to private schools - and largely ignored by their parents.
Publishing magnate Nelson Doubleday's daughter, Neltje, was raised to assume her place as a society matron. But beneath a seemingly idyllic childhood, darker currents ran: a colorful but alcoholic father whose absences left holes, a mother incapable of love, a family divided by money and power struggles, and a secret that drove the young woman into emotional isolation.
North of Crazy is her story - written with the same fierce passion, wit, and emotion that drove her off the conventional path to reconstruct her life from base zero. She became an artist, cattle rancher, and entrepreneur.
"She follows her whims and her lovers, but her often repeated fears over imitating her mother's self-absorbed parenting are superficial. 'My doubts,' she says, 'resurfaced and vanished.' She was once told that her abstract paintings made people uncomfortable; 'they scared me, too,' she writes, 'they were so in-your-face painful.' Unfortunately, she's less successful at describing that pain with words." - Publishers Weekly
"A fascinating life journey." - Booklist
"An epic and very personal memoir of riches to rags to spiritual and artistic triumph. Neltje's life story is profoundly moving - and instructive. A classic, honest, and beautifully written memoir." - Bill Henderson, editor, Pushcart Prize and author of the memoirs Tower; Cathedral; and All My Dogs
"North of Crazy is informative, passionate, compelling and extraordinarily well-written. Neltje's remarkable story captures and combines her individuality of spirit with a personal journey that will surprise and impress readers, page by page." - Lee Gutkind, Editor, Creative Nonfiction Magazine
This information about North of Crazy was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Neltje is an abstract expressionist painter. She has had solo exhibitions at the University of Wyoming Art Museum and Yellowstone Art Museum among others, and galleries in Miami, Denver, and Chattanooga. In 2005 she received the Wyoming Governor's Art Award. Neltje has endowed the Neltje Blanchan Award for the best nature writer in Wyoming, The Frank Nelson Doubleday Award for the best woman writer in Wyoming, as well as the Jentel Foundation Artist Residency Program. She lives in Wyoming.
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