Ann Gray

Noah's Place Ann Gray

Publisher Marketing: If you think women's issues have run their course this book will change your mind. Protagonist Ragan Lawson, thrust into an era when female dentists, doctors, lawyers and police officers are a rarity and all too often merely a silent female foil she blazes an unstoppable trail for contemporary, female Baby Boomers. This novel moves quickly from Beloit Creek, a small Midwestern blue-collar hamlet were people are born into their future community roles to the City of Angels' seamy streets. Los Angeles, a place where bending the law and ignoring morality is the cost of doing business. Ragan, a teenage runaway, meets Alex Gunter, falls in love, they marry and enjoy an idyllic life with Alex' older brother Carl until it all falls apart when the brothers are brutally gunned-down during a South America drug deal. Once again alone in the big, hostile city Ragan finds the strength to go on; fighting discrimination at work, struggling with the loss of her husband and poverty she turns to school and completes a court reporter course. Later immersed in the drama of the Los Angeles courts Ragan meets Mark Schefer, wealthy, successful criminal attorney with two sons from a previous marriage. Ragan discovers following their marriage step children don't always welcome the new bride, in fact methods are devised to get rid of her. To complicate her life further her new husband becomes a stranger and her role in the household changes demanding much but rewarding little. Private Eye Oscar Redding uncovers the cause of Mark Schefer's dramatic transformation following his marriage to Ragan. Shocking and unforgiveable Ragan flees both her marriage and Los Angeles. San Diego becomes her playground and her new role working for a prosperous pharmaceutical company becomes her dream job. Ragan surrounds herself with activities and new friends creating a full-life filled with happiness. The years pass, an unprecedented recession descends on America leaving Ragan, with millions of others unemployed. She struggles with the challenge of her new circumstance until a young man and his basset hound move next door and what follows defines Ragan's unforgettable victory. A love story, connections made, connections lost, a tale of survival for a woman alone but possessed with unstoppable courage. Contributor Bio:  Gray, Ann Ann s main research interests are in media and popular culture but she has focused more recently on television studies in particular. Her first book Video Playtime: the gendering of a leisure technology was a study of the uses of the video cassette recorder in the home, relating this to an understanding of media use in everyday life with particular reference to gender. In addition to writing on aspects of gender, feminist cultural studies and audience studies she has also written about the intellectual and institutional politics of research methods most particularly in her book Research Practice for Cultural Studies. Ann has a strong interest in the history of cultural studies, having worked for a number of years at the Department of Cultural Studies in Birmingham. In 1993, with Jim McGuigan, she edited Studying Culture: an introductory reader and in 1996 with Helen Baehr Turning it On: a reader in women and media and was lead editor of the recently published two volume collection of the original CCCS Working Papers in cultural studies. In 2005 Ann, working with her colleague, Dr Jirina Smejkalova secured a British Academy grant for their project Re-thinking Cultural Studies in the New Europe (link) which has established a European network of cultural researchers who are bringing different intellectual histories and perspectives to cultural studies. Ann s main research focus is now on how television represents the past for which she secured a substantial AHRC grant for the four year project Televising History 1995-2010 .( http: //tvhistory.lincoln.ac.uk ) Ann is a founding Editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies(link) and she was a founder member of the International Association of Cultural Studies. She sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of British Film and Television, Memory Studies and, Mediana Studia, Czech. She is a member of the Midlands Television Research Group at the University of Warwick, on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Culture Identity and Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and an Honorary Associate of the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University, Sydney. Ann currently supervises PhD students in the fields of television and new media and welcomes proposals for research topics in any of the above areas.