Best Friends Are Better Than Diamonds
A Story of Diamond Heels And Stepped-on Toes
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
PROLOGUE
August 1950
Agnes Jane
Anthony was twelve years old when her grandmother died. She sat on a folding chair in the corner of
a funeral parlor beside a large tripod of chrysanthemums bearing the
inscription "Rest in Peace".
She wondered if her grandmother would.
Her left knee sock kept creeping down her leg, and her stiff shoes
pinched her toes. She wondered if it
mattered at all to her grandmother that she felt so uncomfortable. Had it ever mattered? She squirmed fitfully in the chair. Why did her grandmother have to die in August? August is always so hot!
--When she
finally did look at her grandmother ensconced in fluffs of pink satin and
organza, with a real diamond tiara snuggled in her strawberry-colored curls,
Agnes didn't feel sorry or sad or sick or scared. She felt relieved. Her
worries were over. Her grandmother was
gone. She would not come back--.
--Agnes would
never have to dread the month of April ever again.
POSTSCRIPT
Harriet Bell
Anthony died suddenly of a heart attack in Peacock Alley at the Waldorf Astoria
Hotel in New York City where she made one of her several world-wide homes. August 2, 1950.
Agnes had
received postcards from Cairo, Budapest, Paris, Florence and Zurich.
She wrote her
grandmother for the last time on the fourth of July. That was Mama Hattie's favorite holiday:
We watched the
fireworks at McCullough
Park. They looked like an Alfred
Hitchcock movie. We loved the flurry
of flashes, the bangs and booms, the
candy colors and the jewel-like
diamond drippings all over the sky.
I thought of
you.
Love,
Agnes
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
This book is a memoir about Agnes and her best
friend, Mary Lou. The diamonds belong
to Agnes’ celebrated grandmother, Harriet Bell Anthony. The story is a mix of characters, in place
and out of place, in a peaceful town in Indiana in the late 1940’ s.
The problems center on a sensitive, imaginative
twelve-year-old girl who is caught in the inevitable struggle to understand and
accept feelings, frustrations and loyalties.
The conflicts intensify with the visit of a legendary grandmother in her
diamond-heeled shoes.
“Later, before they fell asleep, they swore
everlasting friendship until the day they died and afterward in heaven.”
Diamonds are definitely secondary.
About the Author
Ann Brophy was born and grew up in Indiana. She graduated from Western College for Women
in Ohio with a degree in Creative Writing and English Literature.
She then moved to New York City where she worked
with Broadway playwrights and the cartoonist, Walt Kelly.
After marriage, she and her husband moved to
Southport, Connecticut where they raised three children and live today.
She has published four books: “Flash and the Swan”,
a Young Adult novel, “John Ericsson and the Inventions of War” and “The Story
of Jennie Wade”, both Civil War biographies, and most recently “Summer Storm In
Gettysburg”, an historical novel, plus stories and poetry in children's
magazines.
She taught Writing for Children at Fairfield
University, in addition to freelance workshops and editing.