Undoing the Laces by Laura Petracek
Who doesn’t fall in love with their therapist? But Laura Petracek is not your average client. Not only is she a psychologist herself, she’s a lesbian in love with her straight male therapist. Join Dr. P. for a nail biting, dish-throwing adventure as she learns first-hand about the transference process she’s only read about in textbooks and humored from her clients. In this brutally honest memoir, Dr. P. bares it all. In one moment she wants to get rid of her obsession, the next she pines “why can’t we be together?” You’ll live through her confusion and torment of “unrequited love,” the risks of sharing her music and poetry with “C,” and her humiliating disappointment when she tries to encroach on his marriage. On the positive, she discovers the powerful healing effect transference has on every aspect of her life. All the while, she’s trying to stay on track starting new relationships, working at a men’s prison and caring for her teenage daughter.
“Undoing the Laces” is a funny, sexy eye-popping glimpse into the normally closed world of the therapeutic transference. Laura Petracek is a psychologist and the author of the best-selling “The Anger Workbook for Women.”
Arielle & David:
How fun, funny and deep. That’s what we thought when we finished this pitch. If anything can show the power of transference, it’s a lesbian therapist falling for her male shrink! The fact that you’ve already written a bestselling book (and on a subject that is related) will help entice agents/editors. What can be improved? If this is for a broad, popular audience, you need to give the therapeutically uneducated a quick explanation of what transference is and how it helped you. You also need to do a bunch more showing and less telling. How was your relationship “nail biting”? How was it a “dish-throwing adventure?” While you say your memoir is brutally honest, we’re not really seeing the naked truth in this pitch. Lay out the most embarrassing moment, or the craziest thing you did. Lastly, let us know if you give workshops, write a column, if you’ve been on TV, featured in the press. In the crazily crowded world of memoir, your platform is sadly what’s going to be even more important than what’s inside your book.