Sally Stiles

Plunge! Sally Stiles Subsequent edition

An exceptional, deeply-moving memoir-a classic love story. In the late 1970s, a fragile thread linked a woman living on Park Avenue in Manhattan and a man in a guarded house in West Africa. "I love you very much he whispered softly across 7,000 miles of ocean and up the East River." Plunge! is a love story, exquisitely told. Sally was a New York career woman when David showed up in her life. Their first dinner date was July 13, 1977, the night of the New York Blackout. Six weeks later he told her he had accepted a job in Nigeria. After a romantic weekend at the Pierre Hotel, David left the city. "The noise of the engines was muffled through the window, and as the plane taxied to the runway, the sound faded away, like a love song drawing to a melancholy close." As David struggled to clear a jungle to build a paper mill in West Africa, Sally worked at her fast-paced job, occasionally flew private planes, and led the tenants of her Park Avenue apartment building into battle against her notorious landlord. Over the next nine months, they corresponded-openly, often with humor-and had three brief reunions: in Nigeria, London and New York. "Perhaps the distance that separated us, the lack of instant interaction, helped us both to communicate more thoughtfully, more honestly and even more passionately than we might have otherwise." "An amazing, beautiful literary accomplishment." - Carol Shaben, author of Into the Abyss "I can't remember the last book that affected me like Plunge! It's very moving and strong and honest and beautifully written. I was drawn in from the start-a gifted writer." - Dalia Pagani, author of Mercy Road "So well written and so compelling." - Louise Crowley, Program Director, Vermont College of Fine Arts, MFA in Writing