Left Coast Writers®: Rita M. Gardner - The Coconut Latitudes

The Coconut Latitudes begins with the story of an American family attempting a new life on a Caribbean island after World War II.  Leaving a successful career in the U.S., a father makes a fateful decision to move his family to an isolated beach in the Dominican Republic.  He plants ten thousand coconut seedlings, transplants his wife and two young daughters and declares they are the luckiest people alive. In reality, the family is in the path of hurricanes and in the grip of a brutal dictator.  The children are additionally under the thumb of an increasingly volatile father and a mother who loses her bearings along the way.  Set against a backdrop of shimmering palms and kaleidoscope sunsets, a crisis causes the family, already fragile, to further implode. This memoir is about surviving a reality far from the envisioned Eden and the terrible cost of keeping secrets.

Rita M. Gardner grew up on her expatriate family’s coconut farm in the Dominican Republic during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Living in a remote coastal village, she was home-schooled and began writing, reading and painting at an early age. She returned to the U.S. to attend high school and later moved to California. Her essays, articles, poetry, and photographs appear in literary journals, travel magazines, and newspapers and she is the recipient of writing residencies at Hedgebrook and Lit Camp.  Rita lives by the San Francisco Bay and follows her childhood passions – writing, traveling, hiking, and photography. She continues to dream in Spanish, dance the merengue, and gather inspiration from nature and the ocean. Her favorite color is Caribbean blue.

 

Location: 

51 Tamal Vista Blvd
94925 Corte Madera
us
The Coconut Latitudes: Secrets, Storms, and Survival in the Caribbean By Rita M. Gardner Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781631529016
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: She Writes Press - September 16th, 2014