A Place to Land: Lost and Found in an Unlikely Friendship - Hardcover

Searching for a way to reconnect with the outside world after recovering from a long depression, Martha Manning decides one Christmas to participate in a local shelter’s Secret Santa program. And that is how she meets Raina, a young, black, single mother with three small children. During their first exchanges, Martha is painfully aware of her “lily-whiteness.” But the common bond of motherhood paves the way to a fondness that leads to comfort and trust. Becoming part of each other’s lives demands that they face their own misconceptions and assumptions based on class, race, and religion.

Full of laugh-out-loud humor and searing heartbreak, A Place to Land is a moving look at growth, healing, and the ways a friendship can be a means to salvation. It is a story that will speak to people of every race with a voice full of hope and renewal.

Martha Manning, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and the author of The Common Thread: Mothers, Daughters and the Power of Empathy, Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface, Chasing Grace: Reflections of a Catholic Girl, Grown Up, and All Seasons Pass: Grieving Miscarriage. She has been featured on Dateline, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, 60 Minutes II, and the Emmy award–nominated HBO documentary Dead Blue: Surviving Depression.