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Author Abby Sher lives by this motto: "There is always space to slip on a banana peel,"—a nod to both her classical comic sensibility and her life-long alertness to the dangers that lurk in plain sight.

Her memoir, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN: MEMOIR OF A GIRL WHO COULDN'T STOP PRAYING (AMONG OTHER THINGS), is about the balance of unexpected loss and unexpected joy. It is a moving and surprisingly relatable story of Abby's life with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and how the disease becomes a gift when she is faced with the death of both her parents. She counts, washes, pounds, cuts and starves herself compulsively from the age of ten onwards. But her fiercest obsession is prayer—a search for Someone who will protect her and the world from future loss.

Abby describes it best herself: "Amen, Amen is a detective story, piecing together memories of an adolescence often spent in mourning. It is an elegy, honoring a mother, father, and beloved aunt who filled me with music and their own blend of neuroticism, which I am just now willing to understand. It is an adventure, because there are fast cars, house fires, and lots of ambulances. It is intimate and unafraid, hilarious and heartbreaking. My convictions and behaviors may be extreme, but they are born from a very human need to grasp why we are here on earth, when our time will end, and who, if anyone is in charge."

Abby's buoyant writing will have readers laughing, crying, and examining their own faithfaith in the world around them, and faith in themselves.

"AMEN, AMEN, AMEN is Abby Sher's brave, haunting, amazing memoir of her lifelong struggle with OCD. But it's more than this it's an inspiring tale of a woman overcoming adversity, learning to trust herself, allowing herself to fall in love, letting go of her parents' complex legacy. For memoir lovers, it is a prayer answered. Told in the author's fresh, wise, witty voice, the book, at times, is impossible to put down. This incredible book makes for obsessive, compulsive reading," says Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of SHE'S NOT THERE and I'M LOOKING THROUGH YOU.

Abby is also the author of the young adult novel, KISSING SNOWFLAKES, and is a contributor to MODERN LOVE: 50 TRUE AND EXTRAORDINARY TALES OF DESIRE, DECEIT, AND DEVOTION and BEHIND THE BEDROOM DOOR: GETTING IT, GIVING IT, LOVING IT, MISSING IT and has written for THE NEW YORK TIMES, LOS ANGELES TIMES, SELF, JANE, ELLE, HEEB and REDBOOK. She lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn.

www.abbysher.com