The MF Didn't Beat Her!
I just finished "The Bag Lay Papers: the priceless experience of losing it all" by Alexandra Penney and I found it poignant, inspiring, and well-written. Penney was shocked in December 2008 to find that she had been fleeced out of her entire savings by the man she had entrusted it to, Bernard Madoff (referred throughout the book as "MF" (for "MotherFucker").
The shock both causes Penney to confront her long time fears of winding up as a 'bag lady" and to pick herself up and start all over again by making choices about what is really important. Penney had enjoyed success throughout her working life as an editor, writer, and painter. Additionally, she had invested in revenue producing real estate in Florida and Long Island so her "bag lady fears" would have seemed to many of us to be irrational and bizarre (even after we learned that they are shared by other successful women, including Lily Tomlin, Gloria Steinem, and Shirley MacLaine) but they were real to Penney and she had tried to cope with them throughout her life. finally learning to deal with them with the help of a past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Paradoxically, it was the same doctor, fourteen years after she first met him and now retired at eighty-nine, who suggested that she entrust her life savings to Bernard S. Madoff, saying "His fund is closed but I think I know a way that I can get you in" -- so the man who helped her deal with irrational fears of having nothing unwittingly guided her into a position where the same fears would now be almost rational.
Penney, perhaps best known to many for her "How To Make Love to a Man" guides through both her life & career and the last year skillfully, interspersing the trauma of the last year with chapters taking us through her life, helping us to understand what she had to deal with when everything crashed around her.
The book was a quick read and, when I finished it, I both empathized with Penney and admired her -- she was able not only to deal with the harsh reality but to profit from it as she learned more about herself and what was really important in her life.
Highly recommended!
The shock both causes Penney to confront her long time fears of winding up as a 'bag lady" and to pick herself up and start all over again by making choices about what is really important. Penney had enjoyed success throughout her working life as an editor, writer, and painter. Additionally, she had invested in revenue producing real estate in Florida and Long Island so her "bag lady fears" would have seemed to many of us to be irrational and bizarre (even after we learned that they are shared by other successful women, including Lily Tomlin, Gloria Steinem, and Shirley MacLaine) but they were real to Penney and she had tried to cope with them throughout her life. finally learning to deal with them with the help of a past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Paradoxically, it was the same doctor, fourteen years after she first met him and now retired at eighty-nine, who suggested that she entrust her life savings to Bernard S. Madoff, saying "His fund is closed but I think I know a way that I can get you in" -- so the man who helped her deal with irrational fears of having nothing unwittingly guided her into a position where the same fears would now be almost rational.
Penney, perhaps best known to many for her "How To Make Love to a Man" guides through both her life & career and the last year skillfully, interspersing the trauma of the last year with chapters taking us through her life, helping us to understand what she had to deal with when everything crashed around her.
The book was a quick read and, when I finished it, I both empathized with Penney and admired her -- she was able not only to deal with the harsh reality but to profit from it as she learned more about herself and what was really important in her life.
Highly recommended!
posted by johnmac at
9:24 PM
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