A Lucky Breath is now available for order with Barnes and Noble.
Advance praise for A Lucky Breath
A breath-taking account of a love affair with a place and an escape from a nightmare marriage that is both a female coming of age story and an exploration of the complexities of gender and cultural crossing.
Ann Hostetler
Professor of English
Goshen College
Opening with a mental map of her Costa Rican community, Zimmerman lays out her journey through a rugged landscape toward a place of home and forgiveness. She navigates her loves and her losses with a brutal, yet beautiful introspection. She does this with a lyricism that “retains the melody that once was losing its tune.”
This is no ordinary memoir of leaving an abusive relationship. It is an adventure in beguiling honesty and bursts of beauty.
Hope Nisly
Emeritus Librarian
Fresno Pacific University
Diana Zimmerman writes with heart and passion. Her personal reflections on leaving an abusive marriage, her understanding of family life and culture in Costa Rica, and her personal stories make this a rich and captivating read. Zimmerman’s words point to the complicated nature of justice for the vulnerable amid questions of love and loss.
–Amy Gingerich, publisher at Herald Press books
Diana Zimmerman’s lyrical memoir, a tale of walking away and returning, kept me returning each time I attempted to walk away. The short chapters interpose her memories of a foreign culture that privileged Americans can’t imagine with the story of a broken marriage. Zimmerman’s spare prose hides its melancholy behind concrete images like those of chickens roosting in trees and clothes washed by hand in a cement wash sink. A compulsive read about love affairs, despair, lost paths, raw beauty, and the will to try again when you get up in the morning.
Jeremy Garber
Methodist Theological Seminary of Ohio
Talking to Myself 