Overview

Leavings begins with Megan's birth in 1927. She is the love child of a Hollywood screenwriter and director, and a narcissistic married woman twenty-four years his senior. Abandoned in the hospital as a newborn and made a ward of the city of Los Angeles, twenty-one-month-old Megan lands in a stable home with strict Pentecostal foster parents who are dutiful in her care, but not loving. As a young child Megan has a strong sense of not belonging-at home, at school, or even at church. She sleeps on a cot at the foot of her foster sister's bed. She is asked to leave first grade after crying for two weeks. She never gets saved at church. Even her name comes and goes, depending on under whose care she falls. Hers is a life marked by continual searching, and repeated leavings-being left by others and being forced to leave. We follow this odd but lovable child, adolescent, and young adult through a solitary life of acute observation and search for identity, from finding her birth father to meeting her half siblings, an early marriage, children, meeting the woman who will be the love of her life and, finally, divorce and freedom. Megan's extraordinary story transports us across many decades and to locations throughout the western United States. Through beautiful prose, she imparts astute commentary on political events with vivid descriptions of the social and moral views of the times. Each encounter shapes her experience of the world, as we witness her journey to a life of belonging and acceptance, a woman who in the end becomes closer to being the person she wants to be.

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9781736231609

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I've long known how fortunate I was to have Megan McClard as a high school English teacher. She inspired, challenged, and enlightened me in ways that I continue to appreciate four decades later. What I didn't know until I read her autobiography is just how courageous and indomitable her life has been. Leavings is the story of a true twentieth century social pioneer-and in this troubled era, a must-read for anyone who values the equality of women under the law. - Troy Denning New York Times bestselling author of 40 novels of science fiction and fantasy,

I've long known how fortunate I was to have Megan McClard as a high school English teacher. She inspired, challenged, and enlightened me in ways that I continue to appreciate four decades later. What I didn't know until I read her autobiography is just how courageous and indomitable her life has been. Leavings is the story of a true twentieth century social pioneer-and in this troubled era, a must-read for anyone who values the equality of women under the law. - Troy Denning New York Times bestselling author of 40 novels of science fiction and fantasy,

Author Information

MEGAN BROWN MCCLARD was born in 1927 in Hollywood, and attended schools in California, Montana, and Colorado. She began college at age thirty-five, a single mother of five children, and went on to earn a PhD in English at University of Denver, specializing in creative writing. She taught literature, writing, and women's studies for many years at Metropolitan State University in Denver before retiring as a professor emeritus. She has published two books for young people, Hiawatha and the Iroquois League; Harriet Tubman: Slavery and the Underground Railroad. She lives in Portland, Oregon with two dogs and three people

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