On the day she runs away from her husband, everything goes just as Diana has planned. It won’t be long, however, until her careful design unravels to the point where she finds herself nearly homeless in Costa Rica’s capital city.
Time fragments in this book, and travels in two directions at once. Spliced together with a harrowing series of events that leave her stunned and in danger, Diana relives her romance with the home she loved in the village of Los Rios and the man she married there.
Spartan prose poetry relates the story moving forward, while an image-dense presentation of life in rural Costa Rica takes us back further and further in time, unfolding layers of depth that make this book impossible to put down.
Comments on 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. 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 