Book Release: A Lovely, Indecent Departure

April 3, 2012 - PRLog -- A Lovely, Indecent Departure tells the dramatic story of a young, immigrant mother, who, having lost her son in a bitter child custody dispute with his American father, abducts the five year old and flees to her native Italy. Casting light on an unjust legal system and the desperate climate of missing children and parental abduction, at the center of this emotional novel is the search for a sense of worth.

(Longer Summary):
Anna Miller wants only one thing, her son, and she will do anything to keep him. When a district court awards custody of Oliver to his father, she abducts the five year old and flees to Italy where with her family’s help they disappear into the fabric of her native homeland.

In A Lovely, Indecent Departure, the debut novel from award-winning writer, Steven Lee Gilbert, comes an emotional family saga of a missing child, an unjust legal system and the desperate climate of parental abduction. Told in prose that is both stripped-down and overpowering, Gilbert shapes the everyday conflict of child custody into a riveting and often tender search for sense of worth. Standing in the young immigrant mother’s way is Evan Meade, the boy’s guileful and mean-spirited father, who hires a child recovery specialist when the efforts of the embattled local sheriff, Monroe Rossi, fail to track them down. But as the investigation draws them all closer to Anna, Evan’s true nature betrays itself and the question of what’s in the child’s best interest becomes not so clear anymore.

Objectively detailed, in a voice that refuses to intrude on the minds of its characters, A Lovely, Indecent Departure, captures in stark detail a world in which modern archetypes are turned upside down and may have the reader asking themselves: What would you do?

Visit http://www.stevenleegilbert.com for more information about the author and to purchase the book in a variety of formats.

Other web places to visit:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SLeeGilbert
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5781209.Steven_Lee_G...

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Steven Lee Gilbert grew up in East Tennessee but has spent most of his adult life in the Sandhills and Piedmont of central North Carolina, where he lives now with his wife and family. In 2007, he was the recipient of a Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant for Literature, but over the years has served in many other roles outside of writer, most notably that of a husband, father, and teacher.

A Lovely, Indecent Departure is his first novel.