The memoir Loose Woman: my odyssey from lost to found tells how a quasi-alcoholic actor came to spend four astonishing months living and working among men with severe disabilities at a L’Arche community in Provence, and how the experience opened her heart and transformed her life.

The book brings to life the late seventies, when feminism and sexual liberation were ascendant, and a single woman had to come to terms with what this new kind of freedom meant. It gives a backstage view of the triumphs and miseries of a successful actor, celebrates daily life in France — tradition, argument, cheese — and shows a daughter struggling to emerge from the shadow of her powerful, flawed parents.

Loose Woman illuminates how, with the help of six damaged Frenchmen, a gifted, damaged young woman begins, at last, to trust and forgive herself, to live loosely, and to set off in a surprising new direction.

Beth Kaplan's book about her great-grandfather, "Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin," was hailed as "witty, shrewd and elegant" by famed playwright Tony Kushner. For years a professional actress, Beth Kaplan now teaches memoir and personal essay writing at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University; in 2012 she was given U of T's Excellence in Teaching award. Early readers of "All My Loving" expressed great interest in her fascinating family, which is the story she is writing next. Follow Beth's blog on her website www.bethkaplan.ca.

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