My Vacation at the Beach: A Love Story

An internationally known scholar and writer leaves her career and her husband to become a nanny in Southern California. Though this is no vacation, Susan Gunter builds a new community and learns to love this personable baby, despite the demands of the job. We don't know who we are until we challenge ourselves in ways we didn't think were possible. Follow Susan Gunter's adventures in a geographically beautiful semi-tropical setting as she encounters the homeless, learns new skills, and accepts another life. This narrative introduces readers to ideas, books. history, poetry, language, and meditations on the meaning of our lives. Susan Gunter's readable, witty style makes her unusual perceptions of the world around her available to a wide audience. Her readers will leave this experience feeling uplifted, ready to confront their own challenges. Successful author of three acclaimed books on America's foremost intellectual family, the Jameses, this new grandmother learns what is most important to her.

Susan E. Gunter is a Professor of English Emerita at Westminster College. She has published three books (Dear Munificent Friends, Dearly Beloved Friends, and Alice in Jamesland). This Fulbright scholar, internationally known writer, and grandmother currently resides in Park City, Utah. Her three previous books received glowing praise: --Alice in Jamesland matches Jean Strouse’s masterly biography of the other Alice James, William and Henry’s sister--the one who stayed in bed--and Jane Maher’s A Biography of Broken Fortunes, the story of the two younger siblings, Wilkie and Bob, who fought in the American Civil War. Gunter’s book offers an ingeniously plotted microhistory of the period and its domestic life, and throws light on the personalities of two American geniuses. Colm Toibin, New York Review of Books --[Alice in Jamesland] offers a carefully detailed picture of the rewards and disappointments of the distinctive life of an unsung but essential member of a difficult but fascinating family. Paul Armstrong, Common Knowledge --Alice in Jamesland is a conscientious biography and a valuable addition to the literature on the family.＂ Ruth Bernard Yeazell, London Review of Books Praise for Dearly Beloved Friends --The editors’ elegant introductory remarks and helpful footnotes provide crucial context and background information not necessarily available in letters that focus on physical well-being, travel plans and social news. Culled through considerable archival legwork by the editors, these documents are essential reading for any James devotee. Publishers’ Weekly --These letters, through which a current of warm homoeroticism runs, alternately inform, encourage, flatter, praise, and, in the case of Walpole, offer harsh literary criticism. Yet they are always affectionate and frequently witty, and, while they demonstrate James’s awesome mastery of his medium, they offer us a more lonely and vulnerable man than we might expect. Library Journal Praise for Dear Munificent Friends --These long and elegantly crafted epistles show how seriously he took the art of letter writing. In them James passes along neighborhood gossip, recounts his latest travels, and criticizes Wharton’s new automobile, among other things. The letters also provide a glimpse into the early Edwardian world of privilege, leisure, taste, and grace. This collection offers us a witty and loving curmudgeon with an enormous respect for women. Cahers Business Information