Swimming Naked with Jellyfish
2009 Eric Hoffer Awards-Montaigne Medal Finalist Award
Thought Provoking Books and Excellence in Independent Publishing
View all my books on my Amazon Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/6z7t2ob
“Shelley Gilbert’s prose is wonderfully vivid and straightforward…the writing is compelling…and though the story confronts rather grave issues, Iris’s witty, accessible tone makes an ideal balance that encourages readers to keep the pages turning.”
Little, Brown and Company
(Michael Pietsch recommended)
“Shelley Gilbert is a wonderful writer. She’s brave, intelligent and it’s clear that she takes great pleasure in the language. This is good work. Sometimes even dazzling.”
Benjamin Cheever
Author, Strides: Running Through History With an Unlikely Athlete
“Shelley Gilbert has written an autobiographical novel. She has a fresh new voice, at times edgy, at times confiding… seductive, but always confident…as a reader you feel you are in good hands. The emotional range of Ms. Gilbert’s novel is very broad–intense childhood anger, adolescent insecurity, passion, grief and rebellion, pride. It is not a serene book. The winds of feeling start howling in the first chapter and hardly subside. But the narrator’s voice can control the passion, too–becomes stronger, in fact, as the temperature rises. It is a full-fledged, powerful novel, a deadly serious account of one woman’s effort to discover and maintain her identity, her sense of self and self-worth, despite an upsetting childhood and an adolescence ending in tragedy.”
James H. Case, Dean (Retired)
SUNY Empire State College, NY
“The best piece of writing on orgasm I have ever in my life read. It’s hard to write a great sex scene. It was raw, quirky, individual, original, impossible to forget, and contains the best description of the experience of having an orgasm.”
Susan Grossman
Editor
“A very fast read! From the first paragraph, I was drawn to the central character’s unorthodox nature and she never failed to amaze me. This novel reads like a memoir about a young woman’s evolution. Talk about a dysfunctional family.”
Brian Sole
NY
“Thank you! What a brave, inciteful life story. I’m not normally interested in reading about other peoples lives because we all have our shit, you know? But you pulled me in immediately with your wit and your grace under fire. A very enjoyable read, indeed.”
Susan Dorien
NY
