Goodbye to All That

Redefining who we are in our family takes courage and an indestructible sense of humor. Being the middle child is never easy, but 36-year-old Jill Bendel is about to find out just how hard that job is when her mother throws away her sensible pumps, packs up her collection of classical music and runs away from home.

Longtime wife and mother Ruth Bendel loves her family but hates her life. Husband Richard doesn't even know how the steam iron works, let alone how a woman works. When Ruth's last nerve snaps, she finally does what she's wanted to do so many times before - she gets an apartment, a job, a new life and new friends.

How will her pampered family survive?

Who will take care of her son Doug's daughters when he flies off for a romantic week with his wife? How can youngest daughter Melissa contemplate getting pregnant now that she's the child of a broken home? How is Jill going to juggle the demands of her own marriage, her kids, her siblings and her career while simultaneously trying to get her parents to reconcile? Why is it that when things fall apart, everyone expects Jill to put them back together? Maybe she ought to run away from home, too.

Judith Arnold is a best-selling and award winning author with more than 10 million copies of her novels in print. Before turning to fiction writing, she was a working playwright with plays staged in California, Connecticut, Washington, D.C. and off-Broadway in New York City, as well as in Calgary, Canada. A native New Yorker, Judith lives in a small town near Boston.