I Don't Have a Thing To Wear

by Demares O Pleat

Overview

I Don't Have a Thing to Wear is a humorous and spiritual account of how DeMares O'Connell Pleat finally found true love at the age of fifty-five. After enjoying a dynamic thirty-five year career in the teaching profession, she married her "miracle love." A delightful adventure that led her through memory upon memory, this compelling memoir left the author with the feeling that the tapestry of her life was enriched by an understanding of the path she had walked to find love. Readers-young, old, single, married, male or female-are sure to laugh out loud and shed many tears as her beautiful and deeply touching tale unfolds

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781477576038
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	06/04/2013
Pages:	226
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.48(d)

About the Author

DeMares was born and raised in New Jersey. She received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from St. Joseph's College for Women in Brooklyn and her Master of Arts Degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. She taught English, public speaking, and drama in Plainview High School on Long Island. She directed and, at times, also produced over thirty full length plays. Among those productions, she directed five musical comedies in conjunction with the Music Department. Then she returned to graduate work, and took courses in television production, which led to a New York State grant that established an editing studio for her courses in television production and electronic newsgathering. She also became assistant manager of the district radio station, WPOB FM. This meant that her college bound students had stage, radio, and television experience on their college applications.

And then she married!

Editorial Reviews

2013-10-09
Pleat's debut memoir is a love story and tribute to her faith, prayer and God. Everyone has a story to tell. Pleat chronicles meeting her "soul mate" when she was 55, marrying him seven months later. To her surprise, her future husband and she worked at the same school on Long Island for years but had nothing more than a formal relationship until Irv Pleat asked her to accompany him to the school's senior prom. "[H]e was a gentleman; I respected him. I can't explain or give any rational reason as to why I responded to Mr. Pleat as I did; I can only report what I did, not why I did it," she writes. And therein is the problem with this section and many others. The author often doesn't achieve the all-important balance between showing the reader her feelings and simply recounting them or not explaining them at all. When Irv suffers a subdural hematoma and, after brain surgery, remains in a coma for 10 days before a long but eventual recovery, Pleat recounts her life pre-marriage; she'd always had faith that God would one day lead her to lasting love: "God's time and answer weren't under my control. That's what makes the Lord's miracles so overwhelmingly beautiful." The author reminisces about her previous boyfriends, her role as director of school plays and the full life she led as a single woman. During summer vacations, Pleat and her mother had traveled in Europe. The litany of these experiences reads not like an engaging travelogue but rather a series of trips that leaves the reader wanting more details and feelings. During a three-day pilgrimage to Lough Derg, the sanctuary of St. Patrick, Pleat and the others ate little food, didn't talk and had little sleep. What was it like? Pleat doesn't explain, and as a result, readers may lose interest. An unusual life told rather than reimagined.

Kirkus Reviews