Adventures of a Misfit

Book excerpt: Haunted by her hellish past as the school leper and the distraught daughter of a war-bitten Austrian mother, Andrea leaves home to find the happiness she knew as a young child in the flowering meadows of Iowa. She is confronted with people from drug dealers to escaped convicts to beggars, with the black of night as she huddles up against her car seat in abandoned campgrounds, with countless jobs working with the elder, the mentally ill, animals, and cancer patients. And along the way, she dives head first into the flip side of the physical realm. Did she really take a walk with her guardian angel? Its the world of trance channeling, psychic readings, and past lives as an unconventional woman seeks answers in an unconventional way. Still, the problem remains: she is trapped in a condemning world. She leaves again and again, each time angrier than the time before. Her head now fraught with endless dialogue, lucid memories, and smothered feelings, she begins to writehiding from bullies, leaving her body, talking to spirits, speaking out for animals, riding a motorcycle, traveling to Europe, getting married, singing in an opera, dancing in a ballet, smoking pot. Its a life extraordinaire as Andrea attempts to survive in world intolerant of misfits. Also woven into the story are a meek and mild father, a harassing grandfather, a loony brother who assumes the personality of Mr. Spock from Star Trek, and a psychic minister. Andreas story offers both laymen and mental health enthusiasts an intimate look into Aspergers, borderline personality traits, and serious attention issues. It depicts a very unusual yet understandable life. Who doesnt want to belong? To be loved? These are ordinary feelings magnified to the level of total despair by extraordinary situations. What stirs one, stirs us all.