Flat Ass Calm: A Memoir

When author Amy M. McMullen was young, she wasn’t preoccupied with dolls, dresses, or boys like other little girls; instead she was fixated on a Maine island called Monhegan.

In this memoir, illustrated with color photographs and art, Amy covers a segment of her life, beginning as a very small child and ending in her early twenties.  She describes growing up in an unusual family on Cape Cod during the 1960s, her early teenage years in California, and finally her life as a homesteader on a small island off the Maine coast. She delves deeply into the psyche of a child who became unwittingly caught up in the destructive upheavals caused by her parent’s divorce and her mother’s spiral down into alcoholism, and how this scripted her life choices later.

Her family’s connection to the idyllic island of Monhegan, where she often summered as a child, planted a seed of longing in a little girl whose family life was out of control. This soon developed into recurring dreams that couldn’t be shaken until she ran away from home at the age of sixteen to live on Monhegan with an older man.

During their six year relationship, Amy and her husband homesteaded on the nearby tiny uninhabited island of Manana, raising goats for a cheesemaking business and having two children. But what had been a dream of safety and stability quickly became a nightmare, fraught with danger, alcohol, drugs, and domestic abuse.

Amy’s lyrically-written observations throughout this account are wry, funny, and often horrifying, but they deftly capture the essence of life on an isolated Maine island during the seventies. This is a true story of a small fishing community that had become infiltrated by hippies, and a young woman who had to battle overwhelming odds and learn the hard way how to grow up and create her own future.

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Flat Ass Calm: A Memoir

When author Amy M. McMullen was young, she wasn’t preoccupied with dolls, dresses, or boys like other little girls; instead she was fixated on a Maine island called Monhegan.

In this memoir, illustrated with color photographs and art, Amy covers a segment of her life, beginning as a very small child and ending in her early twenties.  She describes growing up in an unusual family on Cape Cod during the 1960s, her early teenage years in California, and finally her life as a homesteader on a small island off the Maine coast. She delves deeply into the psyche of a child who became unwittingly caught up in the destructive upheavals caused by her parent’s divorce and her mother’s spiral down into alcoholism, and how this scripted her life choices later.

Her family’s connection to the idyllic island of Monhegan, where she often summered as a child, planted a seed of longing in a little girl whose family life was out of control. This soon developed into recurring dreams that couldn’t be shaken until she ran away from home at the age of sixteen to live on Monhegan with an older man.

During their six year relationship, Amy and her husband homesteaded on the nearby tiny uninhabited island of Manana, raising goats for a cheesemaking business and having two children. But what had been a dream of safety and stability quickly became a nightmare, fraught with danger, alcohol, drugs, and domestic abuse.

Amy’s lyrically-written observations throughout this account are wry, funny, and often horrifying, but they deftly capture the essence of life on an isolated Maine island during the seventies. This is a true story of a small fishing community that had become infiltrated by hippies, and a young woman who had to battle overwhelming odds and learn the hard way how to grow up and create her own future.

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Flat Ass Calm: A Memoir

Flat Ass Calm: A Memoir

by Flashflour
Flat Ass Calm: A Memoir
Flat Ass Calm: A Memoir

Flat Ass Calm: A Memoir

by Flashflour

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Overview

When author Amy M. McMullen was young, she wasn’t preoccupied with dolls, dresses, or boys like other little girls; instead she was fixated on a Maine island called Monhegan.

In this memoir, illustrated with color photographs and art, Amy covers a segment of her life, beginning as a very small child and ending in her early twenties.  She describes growing up in an unusual family on Cape Cod during the 1960s, her early teenage years in California, and finally her life as a homesteader on a small island off the Maine coast. She delves deeply into the psyche of a child who became unwittingly caught up in the destructive upheavals caused by her parent’s divorce and her mother’s spiral down into alcoholism, and how this scripted her life choices later.

Her family’s connection to the idyllic island of Monhegan, where she often summered as a child, planted a seed of longing in a little girl whose family life was out of control. This soon developed into recurring dreams that couldn’t be shaken until she ran away from home at the age of sixteen to live on Monhegan with an older man.

During their six year relationship, Amy and her husband homesteaded on the nearby tiny uninhabited island of Manana, raising goats for a cheesemaking business and having two children. But what had been a dream of safety and stability quickly became a nightmare, fraught with danger, alcohol, drugs, and domestic abuse.

Amy’s lyrically-written observations throughout this account are wry, funny, and often horrifying, but they deftly capture the essence of life on an isolated Maine island during the seventies. This is a true story of a small fishing community that had become infiltrated by hippies, and a young woman who had to battle overwhelming odds and learn the hard way how to grow up and create her own future.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780999617113
Publisher: McAimless Publishing
Publication date: 12/11/2017
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 304
File size: 27 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Amy M. McMullen has lived many places, including New York, Cape Cod, California, Maine, and Arizona. She spent the majority of her life on small islands off the coast of Maine, where she became a small business owner. Over the years, she has tried her hand at homesteading, property management, real estate investments, home remodeling, and owning and operating two bed and breakfasts. She also did a stint as a boat captain, doing fishing charters and whale and puffin watch excursions. She became an advanced level EMT in the early 90s and helped create a remote island rescue service. She is a co-founder, former board member, and former clinic director of a nonprofit free clinic serving the uninsured in Phoenix, Arizona, which is also the subject of the upcoming documentary film, Salud Sin Papeles/Health Undocumented. Amy currently lives with her husband and four dogs in downtown Phoenix. Her articles on politics have appeared online in Salon, Truthout, The Tucson Sentinel, and Addicting Info. Flat Ass Calm is her first book.

Table of Contents

  • 1. Hijacked Dreams
  • 2. Manana
  • 3. Monhegan
  • 4. Teenage Crush
  • 5. Cape Cod
  • 6. Damned Memories
  • 7. Westward Bound
  • 8. Rachael, My Ass
  • 9. Dirty Old Men
  • 10. Rebel Without a Clue
  • 11. Mendocino
  • 12.  A Troublesome Teen
  • 13.  Nantucket
  • 14. Dances with Eurail Passes
  • 15.  Crescent City High
  • 16. Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll
  • 17. First Winter
  • 18. Island Life
  • 19. Orca
  • 20. Unforgiving Island
  • 21. Homesteading for Dummies
  • 22. Goat Heads and Attack Helicopters
  • 23. Kila
  • 24. Island in Decline
  • 25. Sinsemilla
  • 26. Toxoplasmosis
  • 27. Back on Monhegan
  • 28. The Bait Bagger
  • 29. On MyOwn
  • 30. Bad Company
  • 31. Tending Gardens and Painting Houses
  • 32. A New Beginning
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