LIMITED EDITION
100 signed and numbered copies

This title will be available in April 2010.

When Matthew’s left leg continued to crumple underneath him over a period of weeks, his parents called their Christian Science practitioner for ‘metaphysical treatment’—a type of argumentative prayer that, according to church dictates, could not be combined with medical diagnosis. Fifteen-month-old Matthew became violently ill, but a series of practitioners claimed their treatments were working and the healing would be evident when his parents overcame their own fears. In this unflinching memoir, Rita Swan describes this struggle from a mother’s viewpoint. Told largely through dialogue and eschewing arid sentimentality, The Last Strawberry lays bare the inexplicable.

This memoir was written in 1979 but remained unpublished until late 2009, when a shorter version of it appeared in The Dublin Review. Here we have the author's extended version, complete with a 'Note from the Father' and an afterword, presented in a limited edition. This edition is a print run of only 100 signed and numbered copies, with handprinted covers.

Rita Swan and her husband, Doug, founded the organisation Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD, www.childrenshealthcare.org) in 1983, which works to stop child abuse and neglect related to religious, cultural, or secular belief systems. Working in coalition with other organisations, CHILD has won improvements in the child-protection laws of more than a dozen states. Rita Swan has testified before legislative committees in fourteen states, spoken at many professional conferences, and published articles in scholarly journals, reference works, and newspapers. She and Doug live on an acreage near Sioux City, Iowa.