This memoir is not your traditional story-told-in-words, although there are gripping excerpts that recount a midnight shooting and the dreams that foretold it, as well as interviews that introduce in depth the painter/poet, subject of the book, and explore her post-trauma road to recovery. Nor is it your average book of paintings, although there are over sixty paintings, prints, and cartoons to peruse. The paintings, like the memoir passages, grip the viewer with great intensity; they are mostly portraits, the kind that do not just represent but bring the viewer into the living presence of a soul, like those by Rembrandt or Van Gogh. Schavrien paints in that tradition, bringing psychological and spiritual insights to her readings of the many types around her, from intimates to caf denizens, by way of her decades as a psychotherapist. This is a book which restores one's faith in creativity-its boundless power to bring resurrection in the face of death. Schavrien, student and friend of the late Harold Rosenberg, art critic for *The New Yorker*, has been recognized through nomination as Oakland, California artist of the year. She has received 15 national and international prizes in the arts. "Judy Schavrien's extraordinary memoir combines images and words to capture the brave evolution of her richly creative life. Hers is a journey that reveals the power of art to transcend suffering and elevate the soul. You will be moved and mesmerized and swept along by her unquenchable passion for life." --Joseph McBride, author of *The Broken Places: A Memoir* and *Steven Spielberg: A Biography*