Sondra Markim has in many ways lived a very charmed life. It didn't start out that way. She grew up poor, and often unhappy, in an aimless, gypsy-like chaos of fathers who were and weren't, a mother who often couldn't, and frequent changes of neighborhood whenever her family was forced to move.
Yet Sondra flowered.
How she did so, capitalizing on her truly extraordinary looks and a real talent for singing and acting, how she became a stage item in New Orleans, finally met the man of her dreams, and raised a happy, well-adjusted family, comprises the arresting first half of this exceptionally lively, wry, and deeply honest memoir.
The second half describes how she confronted her beloved husband's long illness and, in so doing, was bit by bit transformed from the gorgeous but uncertain girl she had been into the remarkable woman she is today. You can't read this book without learning something about life you didn't know and understanding better what makes people tick.