Here’s the set-up:

Seven blackbirds in a tree, count them and see what they be….HOW DO YOU RECLAIM YOUR LIFE after an abusive marriage? By turns humorous, scandalous, and lyrical, Seven Blackbirds follows Kimberly Baltakis as she stumbles along the road toward wholeness, briefcase in one hand, diaper bag in the other.Helen Black is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, University of Chicago, and the University of Tulsa College of Law. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and five children.”At one a.m. in Tulsa the silence is unexpectedly deep. Am I in the city or the country? Is Tulsa urban or suburban, home or alien territory? I’m afraid to go to sleep, so I sit up in bed and ponder the disintegration of my marriage. In his crib, baby Nathan turns in langourous, pink-cheeked slumber and pokes a tiny hand through the bars. In a big city ight now, there’d be sirens, airplanes, car alarms; here, nothing. In the middle of the night, in the middle of the country, I am marooned in absolute, dustless, heat-soaked silence. The bottom drops out of the present. The past rushes up from behind and blocks my future, and I’m stranded–stranded in Tulsa, the city of my discontent.”Check out the book’s website at http://www.sevenblackbirds.com for video and audioclips, or pay a visit to Helen on Scribd, where she is currently top-subscribed female author. http://www.scribd.com/helenwinslow