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Otherwise, I'm Fine

A Memoir

Barbara Presnell

Paperback

Published:

Hardcover
978-1-64336-506-0
Published: Apr 22 2025

$26.99

Ebook
978-1-64336-561-9
Published: Apr 22 2025

OA Ebook
978-1-64336-561-9
Published: Apr 22 2025

$0.00

The inclusion of this book in the Open Carolina collection is made possible by the generous funding of

A daughter's story of unresolved grief and a family's hard-won healing

When her husband Bill died in 1969, Tina Presnell gathered her three children. "We won't talk about this," she said. "It will be easier that way." In 2012, several years after her mother's death, Barbara Presnell recovered her father's World War II belongings: a scrapbook, news clippings, documents, and letters. Recalling how much his war experiences had meant to him, Barbara, along with her estranged brother and sister, planned a journey to travel their father's route through Europe. From Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, to the western bank of the Elbe River in Magdeburg, Germany, the siblings would follow the movements of their father's division and rediscover his stories, share memories, and renew family bonds.

In Otherwise, I'm Fine, Presnell tells the story of her grief and, across her tour of western Europe, the breakthroughs that released her from recurring depression, resolved her conflicted grief for her mother, and returned her beloved father to her and her siblings as a living memory.




Barbara Presnell taught writing for forty years at UNC Charlotte and other colleges and universities. She is the author of several poetry collections, including Piece Work, and her work is featured in Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia.

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