Catherine Gildiner

Hi I was a psychologist for 25 years. Always one for small topics, I did a phd. on Darwin's influence on Freud. Finally at 50 I decided to to leave private practice in psychology and become a writer. I wrote a childhood memoir of the 1950's called TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS and it was on the best seller's list in Canada for 150 weeks and in the United States. It was nominated for a Trillium award and won the Different Drummer award. I was quite shocked it did so well. It is about my life in Lewiston, New York. I worked full time from the age of four delivering narcotics from my Father's drug store with a black delivery car driver named Roy. The book is about our adventures 'in the field of drug delivery'. Since my first memoir was such a hit, I wrote a second volume about my teenage years on the 60's in Buffalo, New York. It is called AFTER THE FALLS. It is again packed with the actions of a girl who seems to be 'a bit on the edge'. I get involved with murder, the FBI, a three alarm fire, tragedy and for some reason I managed to have a lot of fun throughout most of it. AFTER THE FALLS came out in Canada in November of 2009 and has been on the best seller's list ever since. It is coming out in America and in England in November, 2010. (Viking Penguin) In 2005 I capitalized on what I'd learned eons ago in Graduate school and wrote a Thriller novel called SEDUCTION.( Random House) The opening line of the book is "I killed my husband and the embarrassing thing is I forget why." It is about a woman who is in jail for murder and reads Darwin and Freud to figure out where she 'went wrong'. I was amazed how popular the book has been in Europe. It won the DER SPEIGEL award for best thriller in Germany. I have been married for over 40 years, ( I don't know if I should list that as an 'interest' or 'an accomplishment' or simply as part of my bio. It is part of the post millennium failure to correctly categorize.