Authors Experience with Brain Injured Sets Stage for Novel

Author Joy Lee Rutter just completed her novel, A Flamboyant Disarray of Dreams" and is looking for a publisher. Her book is set in a neurological rehabilitation facility; it is general fiction, with suspense, romance and a surprising twist.

(PRWEB) March 10, 2004 -- How long does it take to blink? That is the time required for a permanent brain injury to occur. In literally the blink of an eye, a person can lose cognitive skills such as memory and language. The brain is damaged during impact because it ricochets inside the skull.

Brain injury gets in the way of the ability to store, process, accumulate, and retrieve information. It also interferes with the ability to control emotions, to benefit from experience, to learn new information, and to be sensitive to the emotional needs of others.

Ms. Rutter works at a neuro-rehab in New Hampshire. The job is frustrating. At times, it is also dangerous; turnover is high and burnout is a major occupational hazard. Shortly after she reached her seven-year anniversary there, one of her peers said, People on the outside would never believe what we experience working in this environment. Someone needs to write a book." She took on the challenge. After all, she was not new to writing. Her first published book, A Disturbing Presence" was released September 2003.

Synopsis:
A Flamboyant Disarray of Dreams
Genre: Mystery/General Fiction
89,068 words

Joleen Cumberland questions her motives for staying with her job at a neuro-rehabilitation facility. The mysterious and sometimes volatile behavior of brain-injured client Alex Williams causes her considerable apprehension. She loses her focus, which often endangers her and her peers.

She knows she has reached the limits of her endurance, but her unhappiness leaves her unable to move on. Her friends comment, Theres more going on with you than burnout, Joleen. Youre downright hostile!" forces Joleen to take a closer look at her life and its direction.

When Alex Williams moves into room five with a new client named Mitch Stevens, the pair inadvertently begins to help each other. Mitchs inability to speak, a direct result of his fall from a second story building, intrigues Alex. Is Mitch truly unable to communicate, or merely unwilling to do so? If so, why? Alexs determined and childlike personality begins to wear Mitch down.

Eventually, Joleen discovers that they are both starting to express themselves. Alex exposes his deep anger at a troubled past, but only to Mitch, and Mitch begins to display an awareness nobody thought he possessed. Joleen takes the time to listen, and becomes entangled in a strange situation she cannot ignore.

Her supervisor warns her against stepping out of her professional boundaries" while Mitchs arrogant brother Geoff nearly causes Joleen to lose her job. Her coworker, Brad, whose behavior is more bizarre and obnoxious than that of the brain-injured clients, gives Joleen real cause for animosity.

...Why, again, did she choose this profession?
Only A Flamboyant Disarray of Dreams holds the answer.