The worst part about seeing your six-year-old sister die is knowing you lied about being responsible. As Sheila Pace bleeds her guilt in cuts between her fingers, she rages against herself in a feral lifestyle that numbs the pain. When she discovers her father faked his death over his own guilt in her sister’s slaying, her life takes on a bizarre twist. Despite her self-destructive rituals, Sheila manages to graduate college with a degree in English Literature, but slips into career obscurity while waiting tables at a beachside bar and grill.
Layered within Sheila’s adult story are excerpts from the memoir she is writing about a year of death, divorce, and devotion to her unconventional father, “Ripovi the Great,” a sword swallower at the legendary Long Beach Pike. A litany of broken relationships and her father’s diagnosis of the devastating degenerative disease called Huntington’s, shape Sheila into a woman who overcomes her shame, faces her own risk of inheriting the disease, and transcends the self-inflicted reproach of being the sword swallower’s daughter.
THE SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER is a high-concept literary novel about a young woman’s spiral of shame, guilt and finally self-redemption. Narrated by Sheila in alternating timelines, THE SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER spans the years 1968-1993.
THE SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER is not yet published.