Bøger af Christina McDowell

A “searing memoir of loss and redemption” (People) that “exposes the side of The Wolf of Wall Street we didn’t get to see” (Metro), After Perfect is a cautionary tale about one family’s destruction in the wake of the Wall Street implosion.Selected as one of the year’s “Fifteen Books You Need to Read” by the Village Voice, Christina McDowell’s unflinching memoir is “a tale of the American Dream upended.” Growing up in an affluent Washington, DC, suburb, Christina and her sisters were surrounded by the elite: summering on Nantucket Island, speeding down Capitol Hill’s rich back roads, flying in their father’s private plane. Their life of luxury was brutally stripped away after the FBI arrested Tom Prousalis on fraud charges. When he took a plea deal as he faced the notorious Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort’s testifying against him, the cars, homes, jewelry, clothes, and friends that defined the family disappeared before their eyes, including the one thing they could never get back: each other. Christina writes with candid clarity about the dark years that followed and the devastation her father’s crimes wrought upon her family: the debt accumulated under her identity; her mother’s breakdown; her own spiral into addiction and promiscuity; and the delusion that enveloped them all. She shines a remarkable, uncomfortable light on a family’s disintegration and takes a searing look at a controversial financial time and also at herself, a child whose “normal” belonged only to the one percent. A rare, insider’s perspective on the collateral damage of a fall from grace, After Perfect is a poignant reflection on the astounding pace at which a life can change and how blind we can be to the ugly truth.

What if your pursuit of your personal promised land is really your opportunity to pioneer the highways and the byways to lead a generation to live in the fullness the Father has always intended? If you dared to believe that the dreams that God has hidden within your heart were not only possible, but also that He is calling you out to be sent on behalf of His Kingdom purposes? Would you be courageous enough to respond? Forging Pilgrim Roads will take you on a journey of discovering the treasures and the surrender found on the road of pioneering for the sake of Kingdom purposes. From hidden places to holy heights, difficult detours to hostile giants, barren wilderness to promised inheritance, venture beyond known horizons and you will soon discover that the greatest adventure is truly found in your significance to the audience of One. This book will guide you along pathways that lead straight to the heart of God, helping you to navigate the difficult terrain, knowing that no matter where you find yourself on the pilgrim road, His presence is always His promise to you. This may well be uncharted territory, and you have never been this way before, but if you hold on tight you may just find yourself on the wildest ride of your life.

This ';delicious take on the one percent in our nation's capital' (Town & Country) and clever combination of The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Nest explores what Washington, DC's high society members do behind the closed doors of their stately homes.They are the families considered worthy of a listing in the exclusive Green Book—a discriminative diary created by the niece of Edith Roosevelt's social secretary. Their aristocratic bloodlines are woven into the very fabric of Washington—generation after generation. Their old money and manner lurk through the cobblestone streets of Georgetown, Kalorama, and Capitol Hill. They only socialize within their inner circle, turning a blind eye to those who come and go on the political merry-go-round. These parents and their children live in gilded existences of power and privilege. But what they have failed to understand is that the world is changing. And when the family of one of their own is held hostage and brutally murdered, everything about their legacy is called into question in this unputdownable novel that ';combines social satire with moral outrage to offer a masterfully crafted, absorbing read that can simply entertain on one level and provoke reasoned discourse on another' (Booklist, starred review).