Patricia Pearson

John Allore

As compelling as Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark or James Ellroy's My Dark Places, this is the story of a brother's lifelong determination to find the truth about his sister's death, a police force that was ignoring the cases of missing and murdered women, and, to the surprise of everyone involved, a previously undiscovered serial killer. In the fall of 1978 teenager Theresa Allore went missing near Sherbrooke, Quebec. She wasn't seen again until the spring thaw revealed her body in a creek only a few kilometers away. Shrugging off her death as a result of 1970s drug culture, police didn't investigate. Patricia Pearson started dating Theresa's brother John during the aftermath of Theresa's death. Though the two teens would go their separate ways, the family's grief, obsession with justice and desire for the truth never left Patricia. Little did she know, the shockwaves of Theresa's death would return to her life repeatedly over the next forty years. In 2001, John had just moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his wife and young children, when the cops came to the door. They had determined that a young girl had been murdered and buried in the basement. John wondered: If these cops could look for this young girl, why had nobody even tried to find out what happened to Theresa? Unable to rest without closure, he reached out to Patricia, by now an accomplished crime journalist and author, and together they found answers far bigger and more alarming than they could have imagined--and a legacy of violence that refused to end.

A Murdered Girl, a Brother's Quest and the Hunt for a Serial Killer

Wish You Were Here

Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction Crime Book From award-winning author and journalist Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad questions our understanding of violent women. Why do some women murder their children? Why do others team up with men in ghoulish killing sprees? What motivates the female serial killer? When She Was Bad explores the enigmatic heart of female darkness, drawing into focus such fascinating characters as Dorothea Puente, who murdered several elderly tenants in her boarding house in Sacramento; Mary Beth Tinning, who killed eight of her children in upstate New York; Karla Homolka, who joined forces with Paul Bernardo to abduct, rape and murder school girls in southern Ontario; and Karla Faye Tucker, the born-again Christian who was executed in Texas for having killed two people with a pickax. In this provocative book, Patricia Pearson explores women's innate capacity for aggression, an idea we remain deeply uncomfortable with.

How and Why Women Get Away with Murder

When She Was Bad

Even in a tiny apartment, there were enough rooms for Frannie to get into trouble... First, there was the bedroom...where it all began in such a casually romantic way. Next, the bathroom...where things took a suspicious turn. Finally, the living room...where she picked up the phone and prepared to break the news to the boyfriend she barely knew... When Frannie Mackenzie got sick all over the sweater section of a major urban retailer, she couldn't quite believe that this was a reaction to gray being this year's black. So she went back to her postage-stamp-sized apartment and took inventory. Jeans tighter? Yes. Boobs bigger? Yes. And the absolute proof-positive...the stick had turned blue. Frannie decides to give up cocktails, late nights, and anything else fun that the big city has to offer. But one thing -- or rather person -- she's not sure she's going to get to keep is the surprised father in the situation -- an experimental jazz musician with the improbable name of Calvin, who'd taken off to Europe before Frannie figured out parenthood had awkwardly united them. Falling in love was the last thing that Frannie expected, and the happiest surprise of all.

Playing House

A Brief History of Anxiety...Yours and Mine

An editorial writer for USA Today challenges popular beliefs about the characters of anxious people to discuss the sources of anxiety in American culture, in a report that evaluates historical and cultural factors that influence anxiety, the belief systems of forefront thinkers, and her own struggles with anxiety disorder.

People everywhere carry with them extraordinary, deeply comforting experiences that arrived at the moment when they most needed relief: when they lost a loved one. These experiences can include clear messages from beyond, profound and vividly beautiful visions, mysterious connections and spiritual awareness, foreknowledge of a loved one’s passing—all of which evade explanation by science and logic. Most people keep these transcendent experiences secret—deathbed experiences, Nearing Death Awareness, and shared death experiences. Individuals and families guard them for fear they will be discounted by hyperrational scrutiny. Yet these very common occurrences have the power to console, comfort, and even transform our understanding of life and death. Prompted by her family’s surprising, profound experiences around the death of her father and her sister, reporter Patricia Pearson sets out on an open-minded inquiry, a rare journalistic investigation of Nearing Death Awareness. Pearson discovers that roughly half of bereaved people, as well as nurses, hospice workers, soldiers, and others who constantly observe the dying, have had intimations of enduring bonds that can radically help people to process their grief and their fear. Opening Heaven’s Door offers deeply affecting stories of messages from the dying and the dead in a fascinating work of investigative journalism, pointing to new scientific explanations that give these luminous moments the importance felt by those who experience them. Pearson also delves into out-of-body and near-death experiences, examining stories and research to make sense of these related but distinct categories that shed light on Nearing Death Awareness. Countless people experience these coincidences when a loved one dies, while others experience such visions while they are dying themselves. These phenomena point toward a larger spiritual reality, and the reality of life (or something else) after death, yet are ignored in a cultural framework that dismisses anything that cannot be explained by the physical brain. But by dismissing or discounting these occurrences, we hamper our own healing. Challenging current assumptions about what we know and what we are still unable to explain, Opening Heaven’s Door is a groundbreaking, beautifully written exploration that will forever alter your perceptions of the nature of life and death.

Investigating Stories of Life, Death, and What Comes After

Opening Heaven's Door

Ask anyone who suffers from chronic anxiety, and they will insist that their affliction isn't visible to the naked eye. Our fears are private, arbitrary, idiosyncratic, and anxiety, as such, is a lonely predicament. Patricia Pearson's funny, rueful, and inquisitive book reaches out to all who suffer from anxiety disorder or love someone who does. "A wholly satisfying mix of memoir, cultural history and investigative journalism." --Kirkus

How curious can a five-year-old really be? Frannie and Calvin are back, and even more baffled, in this hilarious and heartwarming sequel to Patricia Pearson’s critically acclaimed comic novel, Playing House. Frannie Mackenzie thought she finally had her life on track. Even though she backed into love and parenthood — getting pregnant before she even knew how to spell her lover Calvin’s last name (P-U-D-D-I-E) — the birth of baby Lester seemed to put everything in the right order at last. Ha! When her mother-in-law, Bernice, takes theatrically to her death bed and Calvin can’t deal, Frannie has to step up to the next big challenge: what to make of mortality when you’re pretty sure there’s no afterlife. And Lester, at five, knows just how to test his mother’s verbal and spiritual limits. Spotting a crucifix in a local church, Lester inquires, “What happened to that guy?” There’s certainly no lack of absolutists in Frannie’s life: an atheist scientist bent on disproving God, a near-death experiencer, a suburban shaman, and the whole neo-con coterie of magazine editors at The Moral Volcano who pay her salary. But when it comes down to surveying the landscape of their own beliefs, Frannie and Calvin find that a dying woman and a growing child offer the most lasting lessons on life and faith.

Believe Me

In this provocative book, award-winning journalist Patricia Pearson argues that our culture is in denial of women's innate capacity for aggression. We don't believe that women batter their husbands or abuse the majority of children in North America. We ignore the 200 percent increase in crime by women in a period when most crime statistics are dropping. Pearson weaves the stories of women such as Karla Homolka and Mary Beth Tinning (who smothered eight of her children) with the results of criminologists and psychiatrists to expose the myth of female innocence.

Natten då pappa dog, sa min syster vid minnesgudstjänsten, hade jag en omvälvande andlig upplevelse” Inom loppet av några månader förlorade Patricia Pearson både sin far och sin syster. Pappan plötsligt och oväntat, systern i en smärtsam kamp mot cancer. I samband med dessa dödsfall hände det en rad oförklarliga saker i Patricia Pearsons närmsta familj. Händelser som gjorde att hon, till vardags undersökande journalist – för att försöka förstå det som inte logiskt gick att förstå – började utforska trakten mellan döendet och döden. Aldrig hade hon kunnat ana vilken mängd erfarenheter och upplevelser som väntade på att berättas, när hon väl började fråga. Personal inom palliativvården, forskare och teologer, och andra som befunnit sig nära gränsen mellan liv och död, delade med sig av sina insikter. Patricia Pearson fann snart ett mönster av återkommande erfarenheter som var oberoende av kulturella, sociala och religiösa åtskillnader. Tydliga tecken på att många i förväg vet när deras tid är kommen och även kommunicerar detta. Drabbande exempel på att starka band mellan människor inte är beroende av varken tid eller rum. En dörr på glänt bekräftar att människans villkor inte alltid kan förklaras och att vi förminskas när vi inte vill kännas vid livets andliga dimension. Patricia Pearson är en prisbelönt journalist och författare vars verk har publicerats i bland annat The New Yorker, New York Times och Businessweek. Patricia Pearson har gjort sig känd för att vända upp och ner på vedertagen kunskap, och har skrivit böcker på många svåra ämnen. En dörr på glänt är hennes första bok på svenska. Patricia Pearson bor i Kanada.

En dörr på glänt

A stunning debut from the newest author to join the ranks in Avon Trade Fiction, award-winning journalist Patricia Pearson Frannie MacKenzie, a 30-something New Yorker, suspects she is pregnant when a rather unexpected bout of morning sickness occurs directly upon a sweater display at The Gap. With nothing else to do but gestate, Frannie decides to deal with father- (but-not-husband-) to-be Calvin, an “experimental” musician. Frannie and Calvin embark on a very wild ride that involves tuna helper, maternity bra shopping, flying Barbies, and more than a few spoon-playing musicians. Oh, and along the way, they have a baby and fall in love.

Patricia Pearson returns to non-fiction with a witty, insightful and highly personal look at recognizing and coping with fears and anxieties in our contemporary world. The millions of North Americans who silently cope with anxiety at last have a witty, articulate champion in Patricia Pearson, who shows that the anxious are hardly “nervous nellies” with “weak characters” who just need medicine and a pat on the head. Instead, Pearson questions what it is about today’s culture that is making people anxious, and offers some surprising answers–as well as some inspiring solutions based on her own fierce battle to drive the beast away. Drawing on personal episodes of incapacitating dread as a vivid, often hilarious guide to her quest to understand this most ancient of human emotions, Pearson delves into the history and geography of anxiety. Why are North Americans so much more likely to suffer than Latin Americans? Why did Darwin treat hypochondria with sprays from a hose? Why have we forgotten the insights of some of our greatest philosophers, theologians and psychologists in favor of prescribing addictive drugs? In this blend of fascinating reportage and poignant memoir, Pearson ends with her struggle to withdraw from antidepressants and to find more self-aware and philosophically-grounded ways to strengthen the soul.

A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours and Mine)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER As compelling as Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark or James Ellroy's My Dark Places, this is the story of a brother's lifelong determination to find the truth about his sister's death, a police force that was ignoring the cases of missing and murdered women, and, to the surprise of everyone involved, a previously undiscovered serial killer. In the fall of 1978 teenager Theresa Allore went missing near Sherbrooke, Quebec. She wasn't seen again until the spring thaw revealed her body in a creek only a few kilometers away. Shrugging off her death as a result of 1970s drug culture, police didn't investigate. Patricia Pearson started dating Theresa's brother John during the aftermath of Theresa's death. Though the two teens would go their separate ways, the family's grief, obsession with justice and desire for the truth never left Patricia. Little did she know, the shockwaves of Theresa's death would return to her life repeatedly over the next forty years. In 2001, John had just moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his wife and young children, when the cops came to the door. They had determined that a young girl had been murdered and buried in the basement. John wondered: If these cops could look for this young girl, why had nobody even tried to find out what happened to Theresa? Unable to rest without closure, he reached out to Patricia, by now an accomplished crime journalist and author, and together they found answers far bigger and more alarming than they could have imagined--and a legacy of violence that refused to end.

A Murdered Girl, a Brother's Quest and the Hunt for a Canadian Serial Killer

Riam Shammaa

A leader in sports medicine reveals the prevalence of anabolic steroids and appearance-enhancing drugs for recreational use, and explodes the myths and silence around these dangerous drugs of choice for the Instagram era. From fitspiration vlogs touting "fit" as the new skinny to magazines imploring men to get "shredded" and "massive" in the gym, fitness stars and elevated body-image standards are driving a burgeoning industry meant, ostensibly, to make us all more healthy. But are those images of rippling abs, bulging shoulders and tiny waists truly inspiring good health? In this book, leading sports doctor (and former champion powerlifter) Riam Shammaa exposes the dirty secret of online fitness culture: rampant steroid and drug use, not only amongst its Instagram stars and wellness gurus, but eagerly enjoined by millions seeking to emulate a new beauty ideal (and its myth, of being all-natural). Never mind the high-profile cases of athletes Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong. Steroids and other pharmaceuticals are being sold and consumed in life-threatening quantities online and through the backrooms of gyms and fitness centres, and the people buying them range from teen girls trying to look good on Instagram to middle-aged men who can't say good-bye to their youthful physiques. This is a vivid, eye-opening and compassionate journey alongside a young doctor as he discovers an underworld of misinformation and misdirected ambition, drug abuse and lives cut short for the glory of competition, pageantry or the mistaken belief that we need to be fantastically beautiful in order to be fit.

Patricia Pearson

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