CUTTING THE LINE–A ROMANIAN JOURNALIST’S STORY OF LOVE, SURVIVAL, AND IMMIGRATION

CUTTING THE LINE–A ROMANIAN JOURNALIST’S STORY OF LOVE, SURVIVAL, AND IMMIGRATION offers unique insight into the female immigrant experience in America: the small cruelties, the unexpected kindnesses, the many obstacles, and the occasional victories. From big-city Romania to small-town New England, this memoir explores what it means to leave the life you know behind—and what it takes to create a new one in the face of overwhelming odds.

Before I moved to the United States, I was well on my way to an illustrious career in journalism in Romania. At thirty-three, I had a published book, a TV show, and a number of investigative print pieces to my name, and my star was still rising. Then I met Lyman Dezotell in Romania— an American man with a wide smile and a huge heart, the sole father of five girls. He came to visit Romania, but I gave up everything to marry him and move to America.

In Bucharest, I was a successful career woman with my own apartment and a tight circle of loved ones; in Coventry, Vermont, I was disconnected, with a limited grasp of English and only Lyman to lean on. Then, just months after the move, Lyman died in a freak accident on his way to work, leaving me penniless and pregnant with our child. With a plane ticket in my pocket, and the unexpected tragedy, I had to make a choice: leave the country or stay and find a way to survive on my own.

I am a former writer for the newspaper the National Daily in Bucharest, Romania. I am recognized as one of the country’s best post-revolution reporters; some of my press campaigns are now taught in courses at the University of Journalism in Romania. In 2001 I moved to Vermont, where I worked as a science teacher (the 2014 Vermont Outstanding Science Teacher of the Year) and am the co-editor of a Romanian language magazine, New York Magazin.

“Dana Dezotell’s memoir Pasiflora drops you into a world you will never forget, from a magical childhood in Romania to a love story that unfolds in America.”

— Linda Joy Myers, PhD, President, National Association of Memoir Writers, and author of Don’t Call Me Mother and The Power of Memoir

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