Park Slope

Legally blind mother of three to celebrate paperback release of memoir in Park Slope

Brooklyn BookBeat

July 1, 2015 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Nicole C. Kear will appear at Community Bookstore in Park Slope on July 15. Photo courtesy of St. Martin’s Press
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Brooklyn author Nicole C. Kear’s memoir “Now I See You,” which focuses on Kear’s journey as a legally-blind mother of three, will be released in paperback July 14 — and the author will celebrate with an event at Community Bookstore (143 7th Ave. in Park Slope) at 7 p.m. on July 15.

The memoir follows Kear as she steps out of the “blindness closet,” putting an end to a cycle of shame and secrecy. With the raw emotion of Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” and the whip-smart humor of Tina Fey’s “Bossypants,” Kear explores the impact her deteriorating eyesight has had on her life choices, and how becoming a mother forced her to surrender the lie she had been telling.

Kear is a carefree 19-year-old when she realizes, on a romantic night at the beach, that she can’t see the stars her boyfriend points out. What follows — the diagnosis of a degenerative, incurable retinal disease the doctor says will render her sightless by 30 — doesn’t fit into her life plan. Dreading pity and pep talks, Kear keeps her vision loss hidden and focuses on devouring beauty and adventure while she still can. She joins circus school, travels, tears through boyfriends and becomes accustomed to flirting with disaster.

When she falls in love and gets pregnant a few years shy of her vision’s expiration date, she amends her carpe diem strategy, giving up recklessness in favor or relishing time with her children. Her secret is harder to surrender, yet as her vision worsens, harder to keep. 

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As her world blurs, one thing becomes clear: she can’t escape her blindness. But if she asks for the help she needs, and learns to accept it, her happy ending might just be within sight.

Kear is a writer who contributes essays and articles to “Parents,” “American Baby,” “Babble” and “Salon,” among others, and chronicles her continuing mid-adventures in her blog, “A Mom Amok.” A native of New York, she received a bachelor’s from Yale, a master’s from Columbia and a red nose from the San Francisco School of Circus Arts. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, three children and a morbidly obese goldfish. This February she performed at the Moth Mainstage in New York for their Flirting with Disaster series.

 

— St. Martin’s Press


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