When I got home, I did what I had stopped myself from doing earlier. I Googled the name: Aimee Laroche. I wondered what I would have done if I had found myself embroiled in this scenario fifteen, even ten years ago. Would I have hired a private detective to track this woman down? Would I have passed sleepless nights waiting for him to hand over a manila envelope containing long lens black-and-whites of a femme fatale smoking Gauloises at a sidewalk café? Probably not. But Googling was irresistible. Like everything on screen, it required no effort. It was so easy.
Maura Fielder looks like she has the perfect life: every expectation fulfilled. But under the illusory surface of perfection, Maura finds herself blindsided by what she discovers on her husband’s computer. She has no emotional cubby hole into which she can shove this ghost from her husband’s past, so instead, Maura upends her life—thrashing her marriage, alienating her daughter, and eroding her own moral center. On the verge of sacrificing everything she holds dear to her own obsession, how does Maura manage to regain her equilibrium and reclaim her life?
In this post-privacy new world, any woman can find heartache if she searches hard enough.
Maura Fielder looks like she has the perfect life: every expectation fulfilled. But under the illusory surface of perfection, Maura finds herself blindsided by what she discovers on her husband’s computer. She has no emotional cubby hole into which she can shove this ghost from her husband’s past, so instead, Maura upends her life—thrashing her marriage, alienating her daughter, and eroding her own moral center. On the verge of sacrificing everything she holds dear to her own obsession, how does Maura manage to regain her equilibrium and reclaim her life?
In this post-privacy new world, any woman can find heartache if she searches hard enough.
"Search Heartache is a gripping first-person story that does an outstanding job of probing the evolution of love, change, and choice. It reveals many mercurial points of view before coming full circle in an unexpected and satisfying way, and will delight fans of women's fiction and literature who will find in Maura a powerful character whose dilemmas are at once challenging and, in an ironic manner, fun. Whether Search Heartache is chosen as a beach read or a more thought-provoking work of literature, it's a tale that will linger in the mind long after its final revelations."
―Midwest Book Review
“I've spent my professional life telling stories. AfterImage does exactly that and touches us where we live. It is compelling, moving, raw―with moments of surprising humor. I try to leave my audiences with meaningful and enduring images from my movies. That's exactly what Carla Malden achieves with her newest book.”
―Michael Douglas, actor The Kominsky Method and Romancing the Stone
“Carla Malden traces the awful journey of her young husband’s illness and death with such precision and care, expressing the emotion between the exhilaration of hope and the darkness of reality so powerfully, that her eloquence turns grief into poetry and enlightenment.”
―Blythe Danner, actress Will & Grace and Meet the Parents
“Carla Malden’s memoir about her husband and screenwriting partner Laurence Starkman is a haunting story of love and loss, and a demonstration of the courage required to put a broken life together again.”
―Susan Cooper, author of The Dark is Rising
“All I can say is WOW! I read for a living [and] never has one made me cry until I read this manuscript. Although this is a book that will tug at your heart, it is like the tug on a fishing line when you know you’ve got a big one. I can’t wait to share it with others. This is more than a book, it’s a blessing for anyone who reads it.”
―Barry Kibrick, producer and host, Between the Lines
"Emotionally raw from start to finish, the story . . . also celebrates a rare and profound love that transcended death. A brutally candid memoir of the ‘all-consuming and profoundly uncomplicated’ power of grief."
―Kirkus Reviews
―Midwest Book Review
“I've spent my professional life telling stories. AfterImage does exactly that and touches us where we live. It is compelling, moving, raw―with moments of surprising humor. I try to leave my audiences with meaningful and enduring images from my movies. That's exactly what Carla Malden achieves with her newest book.”
―Michael Douglas, actor The Kominsky Method and Romancing the Stone
“Carla Malden traces the awful journey of her young husband’s illness and death with such precision and care, expressing the emotion between the exhilaration of hope and the darkness of reality so powerfully, that her eloquence turns grief into poetry and enlightenment.”
―Blythe Danner, actress Will & Grace and Meet the Parents
“Carla Malden’s memoir about her husband and screenwriting partner Laurence Starkman is a haunting story of love and loss, and a demonstration of the courage required to put a broken life together again.”
―Susan Cooper, author of The Dark is Rising
“All I can say is WOW! I read for a living [and] never has one made me cry until I read this manuscript. Although this is a book that will tug at your heart, it is like the tug on a fishing line when you know you’ve got a big one. I can’t wait to share it with others. This is more than a book, it’s a blessing for anyone who reads it.”
―Barry Kibrick, producer and host, Between the Lines
"Emotionally raw from start to finish, the story . . . also celebrates a rare and profound love that transcended death. A brutally candid memoir of the ‘all-consuming and profoundly uncomplicated’ power of grief."
―Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Raised in Los Angeles, Carla Malden began her career working in motion picture production and development before becoming a screenwriter. Along with her father, Academy Award winning actor Karl Malden, she co-authored his critically acclaimed memoir When Do I Start? More recently, Malden published Afterimage: A Brokenhearted Memoir of A Charmed Life, her own fiercely personal account of battling the before and surviving the after of losing her first husband to cancer. Afterimage is a journey through grief to gratitude that alerts an entire generation: this is not your mother’s widowhood.
Carla’s feature writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, highlighting the marvels and foibles of Southern California and Hollywood. She sits on the Board of the Geffen Playhouse. Search Heartache is her first novel. Carla Malden lives in Brentwood with her husband and ten minutes (depending on traffic) from her daughter.
Carla’s feature writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, highlighting the marvels and foibles of Southern California and Hollywood. She sits on the Board of the Geffen Playhouse. Search Heartache is her first novel. Carla Malden lives in Brentwood with her husband and ten minutes (depending on traffic) from her daughter.
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