Her Apparitions & Other Human Longings (ePub)

LISA FURTADO'S Fatima is a young American girl of the 1980's. She comes 'of age' in the disenfranchised era after the "Flower Power" movement, as the daughter of a proud American military leader. Her father's frequent absences, and strict, intolerant manner, drive Fatima, (and her mother) into different quests that take them from the mainstream of the American idealized family. Wanting to escape from both her parents' obsessions (and her own inner urgings), Fatima strikes out on-her-own in the wild world, hoping to connect with an older, married man who has preceded her to Asia.



In her back packing travels, Fatima is exposed to adventures that challenge her perceptions and require her to look from a new light at her pre-conceived notions of relationship, independence, self reliance, submission, rebellion and self worth. She is accompanied by a ghost of the atrocities that have been wreaked on Banda's home country; and finds the contrast of devastation & rebirth, beauty & ravishment, despair & hope, intermingled in the lush greenery of Vietnam and Cambodia.



Having fallen into traps of seemingly free choice; (sex, power, adoration, slavery, violence, drugs, political intrigue, and collapse), a devastated woman awakens in a hospital in Saigan, Vietnam. Here she reads Fatima's diary, and her drug riddled, recuperating mind begins to piece together the truth of who she is, and of the values of life. The devastated woman's drop into the seething abyss of life is the propellant that awakens her to the beauty of forgiveness, genuine love, values, and hope for fresh beginnings.