Hope: A Novel

Front Cover
iUniverse, Dec 1, 2011 - Fiction - 232 pages

As a nurse hands Christina Borysowski her newborn daughter, joy ?lls the new mothers heart. With wonder, she lovingly admires the baby she has named Hope. Her body tingles with excitement and fear. Hours later, Hopes eyes open to reveal spectacular turquoise irises. Christina has no idea that months later, the sparkle and life will abandon those beautiful eyes, the gaze will turn inward, and Hope will lose all interest in the world.

Years later, life cannot get any worse for Christina Borysowski and her profoundly autistic daughter. With Hope destined for a future that promises nothing but bleakness, isolation, and likely institutionalization, Christina is paddling alone against the strong tides of prejudice, misunderstanding, and fear. To compound matters, there is much more at stake than just Hopes wellbeing. Christina is barely hanging on. In a desperate quest to ?nd peace for both Hope and herself, Christina is left with an agonizing choice that will determine the future for both of them.

In this eye-opening and poignant story about autism and its tragic human cost, one woman takes an unimaginable journey through hopelessness to discover an intense love that drives her to make the unthinkable a reality.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Rocking the Cradle
7
From Hope to Despair
31
Help
51
Going Nowhere
83
Modern Medicine
103
No Easy Answers
127
From Hope to Terror
159
Back Where We Started
185
Into the Abyss
195
Hopelessness
209
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About the author (2011)

Victoria Ferrante is the mother of a profoundly autistic daughter and a son with Asperger’s syndrome. She has been writing poetry, plays, and stories since she was seven years old. She lives with her children, husband, and beagle in Howland, Ohio.

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