Memoirs of a Ghost: One Sheet Away

After decades as a go-to ghost writer who has worked with rock stars, sports legends, and actors, Cagan peels back the layers of her own colorful, troubled, well-traveled baby boomer journey. Cagan grows up fast, living on her own at 16 as a dancer with the Harkness Ballet. She often performs exhausted, hungry, and in pain, but she’s a disciplined athlete who endures the hardships. During this period she picks up many useful lessons to be filed away for later professional use, such as when she’s offered the chance to write with a Monte Carlo princess; after years dancing in the exacting, demanding world of ballet, she sees the princess as unprepared and unfocused and eventually turns down the offer. In her personal life, Cagan’s carefree attitude leads to a time of recklessness: she drops ballet in an instant to briefly become an actress, happily falls into California’s hedonistic counterculture drug scene of the late 1960s, and then goes off with the wrong guy. He turns into an abusive husband, and it takes Cagan years to recover and heal emotionally. Now in her 60s, Cagan has moved beyond chasing after the next exciting experience, instead finding contentment in slowing down and being mindful. Her valuable and appealing perspective is an antidote to feeling dissatisfied and disconnected in these technology-obsessed times. (BookLife)