HCC In The News...

Home | Return to News Archives

 

Author successful in getting message across

LINDA CONNER LAMBECK lclambeck@ctpost.com
Connecticut Post

TRUMBULL — In her basement study, where "The Time Has Come — The Book of Grace" took its final shape, Barbara Oleynick laughs at the thought that her book is getting such a positive reception.

"It's been really great," said Oleynick, 53, who is fielding four to eight interviews a day — from radio stations from as far as Toronto and Florida. "It doesn't seem like it will stop until November."

There was a book launch party Tuesday in Milford, where 100 people filtered in, buying copies and listening to Oleynick read passages.

"She's got a very good message," said Susan Shaw, owner of Collected Stories, a Milford bookstore where the book is selling well. "I think the important thing about the book is that it talks about spirituality in terms of our current affairs. There is a great deal of interest in matters spiritual." The book has been featured on talk shows focused on Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The theme of abuse against children runs through the book and Oleynick's childhood. Growing up in a Bridgeport housing complex, Oleynick said, she was molested as a child.

The first in what Oleynick describes as mystical trilogy, the book is set in Bridgeport.

"It's where I grew up. You write about what you know," said Oleynick, who in addition to being a writer is also a nurse and an instructor at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport. She teaches a section on English and an academic skills course.

"The Time has Come" tells the story of Grace, a baby sent to lead humanity to peace. Born to Rachel, a 13-year-old girl, late at night near a waste plant in Bridgeport, Grace is abandoned, then found an hour later by Albert, a middle-aged black man on his way to work at Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford. Albert brings Grace home. A year later, he finds Rachel and makes her part of the family.

Grace and Rachel are destined to help heal the flesh and spirit of humankind.

Oleynick doesn't expect people to take the book literally.

She doesn't mean it as an attack on the church or organized religion, though the main character calls it a mistake that the major religions of the world teach that "God is separate — outside of humanity."

"It doesn't matter at this moment in time what faith you are. No religion has the stairway to God," Oleynick said.

She hopes people who read the book take away the notion that God is neither male nor female, but the energy of love and that humans are an extension of that love.

There is a lot of Oleynick in the book. She can relate to Rachel's experience living in an abusive household. Oleynick said she never quite met anyone with the generosity of spirit of Albert, but when she described his wife, Henna, she pictured Oprah Winfrey.

Oleynick began writing the book in 1992, shortly after she spoke publicly for the first time about her sexual abuse as a child. She put the manuscript to rest and picked it up again in 1996. When she sent it to publishers, they gave it a positive response but questioned whether it would find a market. Now, post-9/11, and given the success of books such as Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," the book was picked up by Synergy Books of Austin, Texas.

Oleynick is happy with the way the book came out and how it is being received. She has encountered one negative reaction to the book. A Christian radio station pulled out of an interview at the last minute, saying it found things in the book it could not support.

"This is not about selling a book at all; it's about having a vehicle to make my voice heard," said Oleynick, who is writing the trilogy's second installment.

Oleynick has also written two plays. One, 'The Miracle of Fatima," was performed in 2003 at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. It will be performed in 2007 in Portugal during the 90th anniversary of the reported appearance of the Virgin Mary to three children in 1917.

Linda Conner Lambeck, who covers regional education issues, can be reached at 330-6218.