‘This Close To Okay’ Tells The Story Of 2 Strangers Looking To Each Other For A Safe Space
Author Leesa Cross-Smith will be in conversation with Gail O’ Neil on Feb. 9 virtually to discuss the new book.
Leesa Cross-Smith
Leesa Cross-Smith has written a new book that will tantalize your senses. Her descriptions of taste, smell, sounds and visuals are so vivid that you may think you are an unseen visitor in the story, rather than a reader of it.
The novel is titled “This Close to Okay.”
She joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to discuss her book.
Interview Highlights
How the story begins:
“My character Tallie encounters a man standing on the edge of a bridge as if he’s about to jump. She’s on her way home in her car, so she immediately pulls over and talks to him and tries to get him to come back to the good side of the bridge. She’s a therapist, but she’s not telling him that in case he has an aversion to talk therapy or in case knowing that information would make him shut down. She talks to him on the bridge and eventually convinces him to go for a cup of coffee. She’s doing anything for distraction, anything to keep him from taking his own life. The story starts there … which is pretty wild,” said Cross-Smith.
Her personal experiences with therapy:
“I wrote obituaries as my first job out of college, and we took some grief counseling in order to best work with the people that were coming in. So I worked at the newspaper and people would come in to place memorials for their loved ones. Every now and then, someone would bring an obituary, although we had to go through the funeral home. But the families were able to come in and place memorials,” said Cross-Smith.
She continued, “And that part with the grief, because I talk a lot about grief in this book … was really helpful when it came to someone coming in who’s actively grieving.”
Cross-Smith will be in conversation with journalist Gail O’ Neil virtually 7 p.m. Feb. 9.
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