CL Pauwels at Large

…with Tara Ison as an astute guide.

My latest, long overdue Other Author Thursday shout-out is for her insightful writing:

Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies looks at how film shapes identity. Through ten cleverly constructed essays, Ison explores how a lifetime of movie-watching has, for better or worse, taught her how to navigate the world and how to grapple with issues of career, family, faith, illness, sex, and love. ~ softskull.com

As I closed the cover on this fascinating collection of essays, I hit Facebook with my heartfelt reaction:

Damn, Tara – I’m not the movie buff you are, and I didn’t recognize (too!) many of your references. But I thoroughly enjoyed, and absorbed, and actually lost myself in your words (something I haven’t done in far too long).

And then the last five pages just gut-punched me, stagnate as I am, as you laid it all on the page…and your words reminded me that I’m not alone in the struggle, something I’d forgotten in the urgent crush of everyday life.

Back to the writing…because I am a writer.

Thank you.

Movie lover or no, the tales Tara shares in this volume are worth your time – you’ll learn lots of quirky cinematic history from the past 40 or so years, but you’ll also learn a lot about life.

And I won’t watch some of these movies in the same way ever again!