By The Sea

There is romance in By The Sea. Mystery as well. Humor too. Even the twists and turns of dementia and formidable Black and White female characters. Once a school teacher, long widowed and always the loving mother of her only son Paul, eighty-year-old Pearl Goodwin is tormented by a secret that she has never shared with anyone. As she struggles with dementia, she sometimes takes on various personas - everyone from Lucy Ricardo to a Borscht Belt tummler. Intrigued by this older woman, Sally Martinelli, a poet, and Paul's new love, offers to share her poetry with Pearl in exchange for badly-cooked Jewish food and glimpses into Pearl's eclectic past. Through a variety of adventures including a nostalgic visit to Coney Island and a whirlwind tour of Pearl's Brooklyn as she remembers it, Pearl eventually reveals her secret and is finally free to "reunite" with her first love.

Paul and Sally unite as well in a way that pays homage to Pearl's life and to the lives of other women like her, who persevered on their own at a time when women's place and power faced formidable resistance. In doing so, they left an enduring legacy for generations of women that followed.