Swish Maria in the Mourning by Pamela Palmer Mutino

“The American dream deferred…but you will never forget Maria.” A true story of love, loss and recovery which chronicles a mother’s process of mourning after losing her only child, the beautiful and charismatic Maria, to a heroin overdose at the age of twenty-three. “Swish” transcends any other book ever written about addiction due to the author’s eloquent and inimitable writing style; a style that masterfully speaks to every aspect of the human condition through its powerful imagery, deftly defining unconditional love, strength and hope. The book cover showcases Maria’s maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Daniel Palmer on their wedding day: January 26th, 1946, as her grandfather (a master sergeant in the U.S. Army, having landed in Normandy on D-Day, and serving a total of thirty-one years in the military) seems to hold his twenty-three year-old bride as if knowing their time together will end all too soon. Maria’s grandmother died of breast cancer at the age of forty-one. In the foreground, on the same dance floor are Maria and her beloved boyfriend, Frankie; although seemingly poised as the golden couple, they unknowingly duplicate the same foreshadowing embrace; thus, a portrait of the American dream deferred.

Pamela, Please tell us about how you came up with your book cover

  When looking through my parents’ wedding album several years ago I was struck by the last page photograph.  After pages of happy wedding day moments, here they were in this embrace that took my breath away; there was something so tragic and foreboding about what was to be the beginning of their journey.  My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer at 39 while pregnant with my younger sister, and passed away when I was ten; somehow, all the desperate urgency of life was in that old photograph.  When I was frantically framing every moment of my daughter’s life when she passed away, the photo of her and her beloved Frankie taken in the park before his senior prom became a recrudescence for me; Frankie was holding her with that same sense of desperation.  I immediately cropped the four of them together as if they were on the same dance floor to symbolize the timelessnessthat joy and sorrow can intertwine.  I then added the lyrics to Goodnight, Sweetheart as a border around the photo and framed it for my mantle. When it was time to choose a cover for my book I realized how this photo truly captured what I was unable to articulate when I had the “eerie premontion”on November 23rd, and wrote about the significance of the number 23.  My mother was 23 on her wedding day, our home address was 23 Elmont Avenue, I was 23 when I married Maria’s father, and Maria passed away at 23.