For a great many years, I was not a fan of amusement park rides – decidedly not amused. Those industrial machines painted in flashy, neon hues did little to mask my distrust of mechanical failure at a height from which the probability of death was favorable. In short: too fast, too high, too soulless, far-too-likely-to-perish-in-a-firey-demise-and-make-national-news. No. I was the patient friend holding the slightly-crunchy prize panda bear and waggling a demure cotton candy smile at my fool-hardy friends. It wasn’t until I became a rebellious teenager and started painting my nails black that the sadism of roller coasters appealed to the dark heart beating maniacally in my chest. Adolescence does funny things to an otherwise normal psyche. It is with a very similar mental marriage in mind that debut author, Tracy Coffee Gayle, presents her first book, Tilt-a-Whirl.
A life-long Kentucky native, Tracy Coffee Gayle’s first contribution to the printing press and its hungry readers is the coming-of-age tale, Tilt-a-Whirl. A familiar topic (we all, whether we feel the need to reminiscence or not, suffered under the weight of puberty), Gayle’s debut book focuses on the life of a resilient girl and her efforts to cope with a physically absent father and an emotionally absent mother – all blurred together with the saturated mess of adolescence. Her navigation of both the normal struggles of life and the defunct of her personal situation belt her in for a dizzying ride of learning to cope.
Join Gayle at Carmichael’s Bookstore’s Frankfort Avenue location tomorrow, Friday, March 30th, as she reads selections from her new release and pen’s signatures starting at 7pm. Tilt-a-Whirl is on sale now at both Carmichael’s store locations and can be purchased in paperback for $14.00 (much cheaper than a ticket to the Final Four…just sayin’…). So the question is: are you riding or not?
Carmichael’s Bookstore has two area locations: 1295 Bardstown Road and 2720 Frankfort Avenue. For more information, visit Tracy Coffee Gayle’s event page or call the Frankfort Avenue store at (502) 896-6950.
Image: Courtesy of Carmichael’s Bookstore website www.carmichaelsbookstore.com
