SONG OF THE SPLIT ELM

A NOVELLA &  CREATIVE MEMOIR, 

BY BRENDA BUFALINO

Published by Outskirts Press, available on Amazon, Kindle, bbufalino.com and your favorite book store.

Soon to be released on Audible

WRITTEN AND NARRATED BY BRENDA BUFALINO

VOCALIST...Alice Baum

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER...Donna Starobin

PRODUCER, EDITOR...MICHAEL STAROBIN

This novella was inspired by a question;  Why did my Grandmother, Lena Strickland, a stoic Baptist New Englander, insist, and I do mean insist, that her two daughters, my mother and aunt, and her granddaughter, become performing artists?   This question led me on a search for her past.  The past I thought I knew, was not her past and not her truth.  The big family that sat around the dinner table every Sunday, that I thought was hers was not.   What happened to her family:  her mother, her father, her past?  They indeed held the key.  The treasure could not be found.  Only the barest details, were available.  I asked too late.  So I had to create, a past that would set the stage for the stages my Grandmother placed us upon.  Beginning in Wells, Maine, 1878.

Review by Mikhail Horowitz, Performance poet, social commentator, author.    

    "In addition to being a captivating transgenerational sage. 'Song of the Split Elm,' also grapples with issues such as women's rights, artistic freedom, and the reverent, symbiotic way that indigenous peoples relate to the earth, as opposed to the destructive, proprietary way of the dominant Culture.  The characters are fully alive on the page, their stories engaging and the writing at times intensely lyrical."

For other reviews see Amazon.com. The book has received 5 stars.