Eventually, Matty separates from the family, when she has told her story or not. She tells her sisters, who do not want or have time to deal with her history, and treat her as an outcast. She tells her mother, who says she must have wanted it. She reports the rape to authorities, but it's too late to prosecute. The novel contains all the worst reactions to Matty’s decision to tell. When terror is too great to handle, young girls and boys may do this, may lose time, in order not to feel the awful quality of the assault, to deny it, and to live through it. Those who work with women who are sexually abused may understand the need for a victim to escape from the abuse by 'going away,' dis-associating. As a thirty year old, she still suffers from triggers and memory fragments. Lia Mack's superb first novel, Waiting for Paint to Dry, takes up the story of a woman who was raped as a teenager, but who never told anyone, and after a while put the event so deep inside her that she 'forgot' it. Except, showing up unannounced has Matty staying at her sister's ocean front home, alone, with only thoughts of that buffet-of-a-man she sat next to on the plane dancing in her head.Īnd there's also that pile of left over paint daring her to take redemption into her own hands.įrom the author of 'Hard-Hitting Fiction, with a Dose of Healing-Humor' comes a serious yet laughter-filled healing story of one's woman journey to reclaim her life, find inner-peace, and stumble into love. It only brings her pain.īut when life catches up with Matty on the night of her unexpected (and unwelcome) surprise 30th birthday party, she sets out on a nerve-wreaking last-minute trip home to confront her family that might just result in her coming full-healing-circle. And the only goal she has (other than filling her stomach) is to avoid any and all reminders of her birthday. In and out of work, she hasn't seen her family in over a decade, lives vicariously through her best friend's seemingly perfect life. Since sprinting away from her sister's wedding (and knocking over a bridesmaid in the process) Matty Bell has lived in a self-made monochromatic life of work-eat-sleep-survive.

Waiting for Paint to Dry by Lia Mack