“Safe at Home” by Joanne Azen Bloom will be featured in Spring 2022

The memoir “Safe at Home” (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017) by Joanne Azen Bloom will be featured at the LA Times Festival of Books in Spring 2022.

This book tells the story of the deceased author’s life journey, beginning with a long-established Jewish family in Pittsburgh, where she was raised traditionally in accordance with the pre-feminist norms of the 1940s. She’s nineteen years old when she marries the handsome boy next door, who turns out to be a serial philanderer. Unaware of her husband’s true nature, they have raised three children while accruing a mysterious mountain of debt over the course of twenty-three years of not-quite-wedded bliss.

Along the way, Joanne has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and has taught first grade for ten years to help support the family. But, due to her husband’s ludicrous wagers, she filed for divorce after losing her entire first year’s salary in one weekend. She eventually divorces him and falls in love with Tommy Tanzer, a man eighteen years her junior who was also on his way to becoming a teacher but aspires to be a major league baseball agent.

“Safe at Home” is an inspiring piece of narrative that talks about the struggles of a woman who eventually finds love, moves to Park City, Utah for a fresh start, teaches school for six years, and then decides to hit the road, traveling the country in a used camper-van, trying to sign up-and-coming players. They were crazy for each other, so much that Tommy wanted to marry her, but Joanne refuses to remarry for several reasons, including the age difference and, understandably, huge trust issues—not to mention a mother’s fierce devotion to her suicidal, mentally-ill daughter.

What’s more, this book is good enough to be adapted into a film, where it takes readers inside Joanne’s life, which is immersive, tear-jerking, and heart-breaking. It’s a hurricane of emotions that was both “… emotionally wrenching & smile-inducing, Joanne’s book made me laugh & cry, sometimes minutes apart. This is a raw & surprisingly honest story of a life with more downs than ups, yet radiates hope & courage" Joy, an Amazon reviewer, commented. Overall, it was well-written, raw, and honest, and it’s a page-turner from start to finish.

This is an inspiring book with “5-Star Reviews” from Amazon readers, in which the author narrates the story straight from the heart of readers, with the occasional shot to the gut and good laughs, giving readers a wonderful heartwarming story of a different kind of true love.

Interested? Contact Mr. Tommy Tanzer for more details as the author has passed away. Learn more about “Safe at Home” by Joanne Azen Bloom available on Amazon, and come visit the upcoming LA Times Festival of Books in Spring 2022!

Safe at Home
Author | Joanne Azen Bloom
Genre | Memoir
Publisher | CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published date | August 14, 2017

Author Bio

Joanne Azen Bloom earned Bachelor’s and Master of Education degrees at the University of Pittsburgh. From 1968 to 1978, she taught first grade at Greenfield Elementary School in that city, her hometown, while earning a reading specialist degree, primary and elementary degrees, and a behavioral disturbance degree. She taught special education in Midway, Utah, from 1979 to 1985. At eighty-five, she is still married to Tommy Tanzer, now a successful baseball agent, and continues to ski, golf, swim in the waves of Kauai, write, and travel while fighting slow-moving cancer. Her short stories and essays have appeared in many literary journals and magazines.

This memoir, her first book, took ten years to write. She offers no apologies, therefore, in selecting an author photograph depicting how she looked at that time.

Contact Information

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