If you’ve ever had to deal with back pain or a teenager, you know how deeply trying either can be. My writing coach client Wendy Coblentz had to contend with both simultaneously. Can you blame her for getting desperate as her back pain continued to escalate–desperate enough to try just about anything once mainstream medical treatments didn’t help? Her first book It’s Your Fault: My Journey Through Back Pain, a Teenager and Self-Discovery chronicles her search for relief from pain as well as parenting challenges. The result is a funny read that ultimately reminds us to trust ourselves.
Her summary for Amazon does a great job not only of describing her book, but of giving readers a sense of her dry sense of humor.
The author takes the reader on a wild ride through the Bay Area mainstream medical community, trying epidurals, physical therapy and other procedures, When her pain doesn’t improve, she moves on to the universe of the alternative healing world with Interconnection Bodywork, a proselytizing Jewish yoga teacher, French maritime pine bark and more. Meanwhile, her teenage son is using the trunk of his car as a storage unit for strawberry -flavored vodka, sneaking out of the house and night and getting caught with smoking paraphernalia on Earth Day. As Wendy’s desperation mounts, she discovers a tool that teaches her to trust her own instincts and learns that trying to find a solution often aggravates the problem. Her new found awareness opens the door as she learns how to deal with back pain and embrace her family.
As San Francisco Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik recently pointed out, the book also provides a very personal, if fleeting, glimpse of her late father William Coblentz, an attorney, University of California regent and, according to his obituary in the New York Times, a “California power broker”. In addition to his own very personal way of labeling things and people (friends’ nicknames included Ophelia Butts, Ossie Tittle and Chief Wet-a-Pants), he was known to dance (once in a restaurant with tongs in each hand) and to make up songs. Wendy writes:
It wasn’t until my mid-40s that I realized that ‘I’m as Lonesome as a Gentile in Miami,’ which dad had sung in full voice in the lobby of the Diplomat Hotel, wasn’t a real song.”
It’s Your Fault manages to bring a humorous spin to both back pain and raising a teenage son. As Wendy’s writing coach, I couldn’t be happier with It’s Your Fault or prouder of its author.
Kudos, Wendy! All that brainstorming and laughter really paid off. I love your first book. Here’s to the next one.
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