ECKLEBURG BOOK CLUB | Freefall: A Divine Comedy by Lily Iona MacKenzie

During a four-day reunion in Whistler, B.C., Tillie Bloom, a wacky installation artist, reconnects with three women she had hung out with in the late ’50s and early ’60s. While in Whistler, secrets surface and a near death experience occurs during a hike, both of which bind the women at a deeper level. Their new intimacy prompts them to celebrate the millennium as well as their approaching sixtieth birthdays in Italy. So a few weeks later, Tillie travels to Venice to have an extended reunion with her friends. While the women assume they’re in Venice to vacation and deepen their relationships, Tillie has a hidden agenda: she intends to crash the Venice Biennale, hoping to find a larger audience for her art. Cupid’s arrows complicate her goals when she and an Italian priest fall for each other. The reflective quality of Venice’s canals also create unexpected changes in the women, causing them to turn inward. They all end up with a fresh take on themselves and their lives. Tillie, in particular, experiences a deeper understanding of herself. But will it take her on a path she’s ready to travel, and will Venice finally give her the recognition she seeks as an artist?


What People Are Saying about Freefall: A Divine Comedy

Can the story of four women turning sixty be called a coming-of-age novel? Because that’s what Freefall is. Part pain, part humor, part magical, and part philosophical, this is an enchanting story about old friends reuniting to try to find themselves as they struggle with thoughts on aging, religion, motherhood, men, art, and death. A delightful trip in every respect, with plenty of surprises and laughs along the way. A Divine Comedy, indeed! Yes! —Mark Willen, author of the novels Hawke’s Point and Hawke’s Return

Hilarious, spiritual, and sensual, Lily Iona MacKenzie's wonderful novel Freefall: A Divine Comedy takes you on a rollicking ride spanning three countries (San Francisco Bay Area, Whistler, B.C., Venice, Italy) and four decades. These fascinating characters will fill your imagination, defying expectations about aging, art, and what truly matters in life. —Laurie Ann Doyle, award-winning author of World Gone Missing

What I love most about "Freefall: A Divine Comedy" is that the main character Tillie refuses to be limited by anything as artificial as age, or really by anything at all. We follow Tillie and her 3 remarkable friends as they travel to Venice, meet a pigeon who's the reincarnation of Tillie's former lover, and reveal long hidden secrets. Along the way, masks of all kinds are discarded and death becomes another passage rather than some dreadful end. This intriguing novel will entertain you, but more importantly shake your assumptions about aging to their very core. Highly recommended! —F. S. Brown, InD’tale Magazine

Publisher’s Information

<li><b>PUBLISHER:</b> Pen-L Publishing</li>
<li><b>ISBN:</b> 978-1683131960</li>
<li><b>DIMENSIONS:</b> 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches</li>
<li><b>PAGES:</b> 257]</li>
<li><b>PRICE:</b> $14.97</li>
<li><b>RELEASE DATE:</b> 01/01/2019</li>
<li><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Freefall-Divine-Lily-Iona-MacKenzie/dp/1683131967/ref" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PURCHASE HERE</a></b></li>


Recommended Works by Lily Iona MacKenzie

Favorite Eckleburg Work:

Curva Peligrosa by Lily Iona Mackenzie

When Curva Peligrosa arrives in Weed, Alberta, after a twenty-year trek on the Old North Trail from southern Mexico, she stops its residents in their tracks. With a parrot on each shoulder, a glittering gold tooth, and a wicked trigger finger, she is unlike anything they have ever seen before. Curva is ready to settle down, but are the inhabitants of Weed ready for her? Possessed of an insatiable appetite for life and love, Curva’s infectious energy galvanizes the townspeople, turning their staid world upside down with her exotic elixirs and unbridled ways. Toss in an unscrupulous americano developer and a one-eyed Blackfoot chief, stir them all together in a tornado’s tempestuous tumult, and the town of Weed will never be the same again. A lyrical account of one woman’s journey and the unexpected effects it has on the people around her, Curva Peligrosa pulses with the magic at the heart and soul of life. READ MORE

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Discussion Questions for Freefall: A Divine Comedy

  1. Discussion questions are posted at the end of the novel.


About Lily Iona MacKenzie


A Canadian by birth, a high school dropout, and a mother at 17, in my early years, I supported myself as a stock girl in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a long-distance operator for the former Alberta Government Telephones, and as a secretary (Bechtel Corp sponsored me into the States). I also was a cocktail waitress at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, briefly broke into the male-dominated world of the docks as a longshoreman (I was the first woman to work on the SF docks and almost got my legs broken), founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County, co-created The Story Shoppe, a weekly radio program for children that aired on KTIM in Marin County, CA, and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in creative writing and one in the humanities). I have published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 155 American and Canadian venues. My novel Fling! was published in 2015. Curva Peligrosa came out in 2017. Freefall: A Divine Comedy was released in January 2019. My poetry collection All This was published in 2011. I currently teach creative writing at the University of San Francisco's Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning. I also blog at http://lilyionamackenzie.com.

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Lily MacKenzie