Shelby's Life and Whatnot

How Exciting!

The novel, she is finished.

For years (four to be exact) people have been asking what my novel is about. Since it's done, I can tell you now without killing you. Here's the synopsis:

28-year-old Carly Gantry has finally lost it. A completely unskilled and soon-to-be unemployed technical support representative, Carly spends much of her time dodging credit collection agencies and trying to get around the restrictions of the restraining order her ex-boyfriend has filed. Unfortunately, her half-hearted suicide attempt doesn’t earn her the love and attention she seeks. Instead it sets off a chain of events Carly is unable to control.

Caught up in Carly’s maelstrom is her mother, a schizophrenic recluse who speaks entirely in Carly Simon lyrics, her sister Tate, the lead singer of the self-described angry lesbian band Menstrual Vengeance, and her father, whose picture appears in the dictionary under both “passive” and “pathetic.”

Carly is thrown into the world of modern mental health care and learns firsthand how inadequate it truly is. In the hospital, she befriends Meryl, a fellow patient who has racked up so many hours in mental health treatment she deserves a frequent flier card. What Carly doesn’t know is that Meryl is far more troubled than she appears to be.

The medical profession having failed her, Carly pins her hopes on Dr. Bob, a sportscaster-turned-pop psychologist and host of an extremely popular television talk show. Meryl sets Carly up to appear on the show but it’s not until the episode starts filming that Carly realizes exactly what Meryl has set her up for. After the taping, she leaves a number of extremely angry and hateful messages on Meryl’s voicemail and fervently hopes that her television appearance will be edited out.

Upon arriving home, however, Carly learns that Meryl has taken her own life, and suddenly Carly’s world has been thrown upside-down. Still reeling from her friend’s death, Carly’s disastrous episode of the Dr. Bob Show airs and becomes a nationally televised study in humiliation and ridicule. That night, Carly’s mother, in the midst of a serious mental health episode, disappears from her house. Carly must go out and find her mother and in the process, find herself—picking up the crumbled pieces of her life and making her family whole again.