After eight visits to surgery in eight months, "heart transplant" is
working its way into conversations with John's doctors. John &
Barbara are talking about going sailing instead.
Sailing Grace,
narrated with present-tense immediacy, is John's account of drowning in
heart disease, fighting back and sailing on. It begins with him gasping
for air in a local health club, and ends thirty-one months & four
thousand miles later when he, his wife Barbara and their two youngest
children maneuver their sailboat Grace into Schull Harbor, Ireland.
A gritty account of a family's struggle to do better than simply survive, Sailing Grace is
a commentary on how love heals, dreams energize and trauma can be a
wake-up call. From hospital ward to the stormy Atlantic, this hard-edge
story will resonate with anyone who has confronted profound adversity,
be it coronary disease, cancer, or the heavy weather that unexpectedly
blows through every life.
A longtime contributor to Sailing, Cruising World, and Yachting Monthly (in the U.K.), John Otterbacher wrote Sailing Grace at his editor's insistence. John currently lives and writes in Michigan.
Soft-cover edition. Signed by the author.