Everything is a little broken
My debut novel, Everything is a Little Broken, is available now on
Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com
Aging is hard, but watching those you love get older isn’t much easier.
EVERYTHING IS A LITTLE BROKEN (Post Hill Press; February 27, 2024), invites readers to both laugh and cry at some of the painful, heart-wrenching and absurd moments Mira Cayne and her father, Matt Frank, experience as age and infirmity begin to take their toll. Their story will be instantly recognizable to the 41 million Americans caring for older adults in their lives.
Matt has always been Mira’s hero and her rock, but he isn’t bouncing back easily from his second spinal cord surgery at the age of 79. As he grows increasingly fragile, Mira looks for ways to revive his spirit, and her own. Luckily, her father is still impossibly stubborn, and can take a good wheelchair joke. Laughing at what life is doing to his dignity seems to be the only medicine with any healing power, for both father and daughter.
Everything isn’t funny, though. Mae, Mira’s beloved nanny, is dying. She has a 74-year history with the Frank family and is a maternal figure to both Mira and her father. Mae’s abiding Pentecostal faith inspires Mira as she tries to excavate and reexamine her own Jewish commitment, which lapsed years ago.
As all the relationships around her are changing, Mira will have to confront the question that comes for all of us: “Who will I be when the older generation is gone?”
Faced with nothing but time during the COVID-19 lockdown, Sugar chose the vehicle of fiction in order to express universal truths about the challenges she was facing with her own father. Together they have laughed about everything from neuropathy to nurses to hearing aids. It helps to remember that everything is a little broken.
Matt has always been Mira’s hero and her rock, but he isn’t bouncing back easily from his second spinal cord surgery at the age of 79. As he grows increasingly fragile, Mira looks for ways to revive his spirit, and her own. Luckily, her father is still impossibly stubborn, and can take a good wheelchair joke. Laughing at what life is doing to his dignity seems to be the only medicine with any healing power, for both father and daughter.
Everything isn’t funny, though. Mae, Mira’s beloved nanny, is dying. She has a 74-year history with the Frank family and is a maternal figure to both Mira and her father. Mae’s abiding Pentecostal faith inspires Mira as she tries to excavate and reexamine her own Jewish commitment, which lapsed years ago.
As all the relationships around her are changing, Mira will have to confront the question that comes for all of us: “Who will I be when the older generation is gone?”
Faced with nothing but time during the COVID-19 lockdown, Sugar chose the vehicle of fiction in order to express universal truths about the challenges she was facing with her own father. Together they have laughed about everything from neuropathy to nurses to hearing aids. It helps to remember that everything is a little broken.
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Writer, Author
I am a writer living in New York City with my husband, twin teenagers and my English Bulldog, Batman.I have been published in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Spectator US, The Christian Post, The Washington Examiner, The Jewish Journal, White Rose Magazine and JNS News Service. My column, The Cocktail Party Contrarian, appears every other Friday in The New York Sun.I have a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in History from JTS in Manhattan. I spent 15 years in the not-for-profit sector after a 2-year stint as Managing Editor of Animal Fair Magazine, a lifestyle magazine for pet lovers.