My Mother Next Door
It’s hardly newsworthy when a man walks out on his family. But it’s rather unusual for a mother to walk out, leaving the father to bring up their sixteen-year-old daughter-and downright scandalous for said Irish Catholic mother to move into the house next door to start a new life with a bunch of hot male students at the age of sixty.
No one can accuse Diane Danvers Simmons of telling a familiar story. Instead she offers a wickedly witty, candid, irreverent, British coming-of-age story with a fresh take on maternal abandonment. In My Mother Next Door she shares the life lessons learned growing up in the revolutionary 1970s while her narcissistic mother charted her own unfathomable course to independence and freedom.
After living in America for decades and becoming a mother herself, Diane journeys back through the madness of her early years, coming to terms with a comical, painful family history, but also celebrating the strength and humor it has given her to face the absurdity of life. In trying to understand what drove her mother to become the woman next door, Diane discovers new respect, love, and even forgiveness: the root of our humanity.
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Diane Danvers Simmons is a born-and-raised Brit who moved to America in her late twenties for business and success. After an accomplished career as a senior vice president at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising and then Omnicom Media in London, New York, and LA, she became a mother. Drawing from her advertising and marketing skills, Chopra center teachings, and life experiences, Diane transitioned her skills into female-empowerment activism through speaking engagements, workshops, writing (published online articles), film, online communities, and mentorship in the USA and globally. Embarking on a personal journey to write My Mother Next Door, she was further inspired to create and host a new podcast series with her millennial daughter called Mothers and Daughters Unfiltered (the title says it all), launched Jan 2020, at www.mothersanddaughtersunfiltered.com.