This incredibly unique story shares the personal journeys of a young mother as she comes to grips with her son's autism while finding inspiration in the wild pageantry and fame of a Broadway legend.
Jacket Descriptions
In The Unreachable Star: My Unauthorized Travels with Patti LuPone, author Maile Hernandez shares her fascination with a Broadway legend and her struggles as a mother to a child with special needs. Dramatic in all the right ways, this poignant and reflective memoir reads as a deeply felt confession that wades through the waters of what it means to sail upon the shores of self-revelation. As funny and lilting as a memoir can be, there is an often self-deprecating tone, which reads as a tender weight of a life that inadvertently went off-course. A failed lawyer who began to view herself as 'just a wife' began to dream of renewing her singing and acting career after realizing a long-sought dream of seeing Patti LuPone live on stage on Broadway. With humor and grace, Hernandez ultimately paints a vivid picture of what success is-as a wife, as a mother, and as a performer.
Tender, wise and witty, The Unreachable Star: My Unauthorized Travels with Patti LuPone by Maile Hernandez is an extraordinary memoir that is as unique as it is heartfelt. A memorable blend of correspondences to Ms. LuPone serve as a dramatic backdrop to a star-struck woman on the edge of her own personal success and chronicles their lives beginning with a failed attempt to first see the performer when the author was just a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl.
At twenty-eight, Maile lost her mother to cancer the same week she gave birth to her son who would later be diagnosed with autism. As she tries to make sense of her life as a mother consumed by caring for a child with very special needs, she begins to follow the career path of the legendary Broadway and television performer, Patti LuPone, more closely. Always a fan, the author realized a dream to see the singer and actress - best known for roles in Evita (Tony award winner for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical), Les Miserables, Sweeney Todd (Tony award nominee for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical), and 2008's Gypsy (Tony Award Winner for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical) - which ultimately sparks a renewed passion in living her own life for all it is worth. A stay at home mom and former attorney who had once aspired to a singing career, Maile is motivated to shake the depression of her son's condition and to once again pursue singing and performing professionally. The sky becomes her limit, and with poise and grace she shares a poignant account of blooming where you are planted and an inspired tale of what it takes to keep reaching for unreachable stars.
Always drawn to the limelight and the stage, what began as schoolgirl admiration for a Broadway legend turned to fascination-at times, a star-struck enthrallment-that for a lonely mother of an autistic child served as her outlet, her sanity, and ultimately, her triumph.
In The Unreachable Star: My Unauthorized Travels with Patti LuPone, new author Maile Hernandez shares her own poignant tale of coming to grips with her son's consuming needs in order to celebrate herself as an artist in her own right and to begin to envision a new life as the singer and actor she had always meant to be. As funny and lilting as a memoir can be, this book chronicles Patti LuPone's amazing career and influence against the not so stark contrast of the author's own life.
Author Biography
A vocal performance major at Indiana University at Bloomington, Maile Hernandez ultimately graduated with degrees in sociology and speech communication. She later received a law degree from the Arizona State University College of Law and is a member of the Arizona State Bar. She performs with multiple local music and theatre productions where she lives in Arizona with her husband and son. You can read more about the author on her website at www.MaileHernandez.com
