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Narrative Memoir: stories of real people



In 1987, Sara Niles fled for her life during a February rainstorm with her five young children in tow. Ten years later, Sara Niles obtained academic training and began working for a domestic violence prevention agency in which a parade of broken families and children sought out help. It was within the context of providing domestic violence prevention services to individuals who were caught up in generational cycles of violence and abuse that Sara Niles was exposed to the breadth and depth of family dysfunction, and it’s long reaching effects.



Out of the Maelstrom contains the stories of real people who have survived unimaginable trauma and abuse that left some broken, while empowering others. Set in a small town that was infested with illegal drug manufacturing, small town crime, and the hopelessness of poverty, the stories of real people whose indomitable spirit refused to succumb to defeat.



The stories of Out of the Maelstrom are narrated by Sara Niles and include a broad worldview of major events that are of national importance; as well as historical happenings that impacted the narrator and those around her. The love of family and friends and the devotion to duty and principle, provides an inspirational narrative that paints humankind in its best light, as well as exposing the darker side of human nature. Although some of the stories are purely tragic, others are loaded with humor and sarcasm as the flaws of human nature are presented in a tragedy of errors, providing a gentle impetus for the reader to take a breath, and laugh.



EXCERPTS and Quotes
"He was dead, alright. The sight of death is an ugly and fearsome thing, I thought, as I absorbed the tragic sight in front of me. It was a man, ‘The man’ , was lying in the road with blackish- red blood pooled around his head, and as he lay face down with his feet in his own yard, while his head and shoulders were planted in the street, he gave the appearance of a killed animal felled in its tracks by a hunter" (Chapter One)



“From the time that I was a mere three and a half years old and was swept into a fairy tale, until my mid-teens when I was dragged into a living nightmare, the circumstances of my life were nothing like that of most people that I knew. There was an intensity and speed contained within my personal history that fast forwarded me and catapulted me into a new domain, breaking down the walls of my natural inertia, and crashing forward like a whirlwind- with me clinging to it for dear life with things spinning out of control on more than a few occasions”



"The program was at its peak at that time and so was the violence in our community. Small towns live or die, based on its resources, but if the town is especially poor and resources are especially limited, people will find a way, whether it is the right way or wrong way. In our little town the wrong way was chosen a lot, the area was poverty stricken and rife with drugs, so it was not surprising that the local entrepreneurs chose drug dealing as their profession-they grew it, made it, cooked it, sold it, ran it, stole it. The violence came next, stabbings, shootings, rapes and whatever it took to elevate the status quo in a drug culture"



Table of Contents
Chapter 1…..Homicide in the Street
Chapter 2…..A Place of Safety in a Time of Danger
Chapter 3…..A Special Brand of People
Chapter 4…..An Education of a Different Sort
Chapter 5…..Mending Broken Lives
Chapter 6…..Where I Belonged
Chapter 7…..God Bless the Women and Children
Chapter 8…..Problems on the Home Front
Chapter 9….. “You Shine up Like a New Penny”
Chapter 10…..A Critical Dilemma
Chapter 11…..The Ghost in the Shelter
Chapter 12…..The Naked Lady and the Others
Chapter 13…..The Good and the Bad
Chapter 14…..The Ice Storm
Chapter 15…..The Sacrifice of Volunteers
Chapter 16…..A National Disaster
Chapter 17…..Robbers in Our Midst
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