Diana Moore is a seemingly typical New York woman: overanalyzed, overworked, overaware, overexercised… and of course, heartbroken. She’s dreading the worst day of her life – a wedding she is to attend, alone, where her ex will be with his new girlfriend.

Only Diana never goes to the wedding, because her parents and brother are killed by a drunk driver. And now she is truly alone, in a way she never ever imagined. Everything has changed.

Kathleen DeMarco has written a poignant story of a young woman’s journey from absolute grief to a place where hope can still be seen and felt amidst the jungle of life’s most crushing blows. Her story exerts a magnetism that marks the debut of an extraordinary talent. DeMarco has written a story that embodies the darkest moments of a person’s life (Heartbreak, Insecurity, Loneliness, Despair, Insanity, Unemployment, Self-Deprivation) with humor, compassion and a deep appreciation for family and friendship.

CRANBERRY QUEEN (Talk/Miramax Books; June 1, 2001) is, ultimately, a coming-of-age story of a good woman who lost her family, and insodoing, her life. She thinks, when she quits her job on a whim, "I want to call my mother" but remembers her mother is dead. She wakes from dreams seeing her brother dancing with his fiancée and knows why he was smiling. She remembers a question she meant to ask her father and then realizes he is not able to respond. When lost in New Jersey, (after colliding with an old woman on a motorbike and subsequently befriending her and her granddaughter, Louisa), she promises her new friends to call her parents and assure them of her safety. She picks up the phone and leaves a message on her parents’ recorder – one they will never receive.

In a mere 48 hours, Diana finds herself coming to terms with her own adolescent behavior that has seeped into her own adult life. She listens and begins to consider the complications in the lives of people other than herself. She hears the secrets of others, learns about their pains, absorbs their private difficulties, and finds herself able to begin a desperate but necessary healing process. All of this is learned in her newly-discovered sanctuary, the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where she witnesses the yearly harvest of cranberries and comes to know the people whose lives are affected by the astounding beauty and bounty of this crop.

In CRANBERRY QUEEN, Kathleen DeMarco poses the question that the increasingly single, sophisticated set of women ask themselves privately in their beds at night: What would I do if my family was gone? Who would be here for me? Is this my destiny and what did I do to deserve it? She gives credence to the fear and heartbreak and loss of Diana Moore in a way that extends to the lives of women from coast to coast, continent to continent.

With compassion and extraordinary craft, Kathleen DeMarco makes her literary debut with a singularly astonishing work of fiction.

Kathleen DeMarco

author of

CRANBERRY QUEEN

KATHLEEN DeMARCO wrote her first novel, CRANBERRY QUEEN, last spring while working full-time at the film production company she runs with John Leguizamo, her producing partner. When she finished last May, it was submitted immediately and exclusively to Jonathan Burnham at Talk Miramax Books, who preempted worldwide rights within 22 hours. Miramax Films optioned the film rights and DeMarco will also be writing the screenplay for the film, and will serve as executive producer.

DeMarco has spent the last eight years working in the film business, developing movies-of-the-week and miniseries for television as well as writing treatments for all the major networks and HBO. More recently, with Leguizamo, she has produced FREAK for HBO (director: Spike Lee) and JOE THE KING (director: Frank Whaley), winner of the 1999 Waldo Salt Award at Sundance. She is currently producing two feature films for Fox Searchlight (one which will be directed by Alexander Payne, director of ELECTION), a

Miramax animated television series slated for Fox, and two feature films for HBO. She and Leguizamo are also currently collaborating on a romantic comedy screenplay.

DeMarco graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with one degree in English from the College of Arts & Sciences and one in economics from the Wharton School of Business. She worked for four years as a commodities trader in Philadelphia, before moving to Cambridge and taking the screenwriting and directing courses at Harvard University which led to her first job in the film industry. She was also captain of the women’s crew team at Penn, and her high school days were spent at St. Andrews School in Delaware, the site of Peter Weir’s DEAD POET’S SOCIETY. Without a doubt, however, her most edifying experience was working on her family’s cranberry and blueberry farm during her childhood. It wasn’t until she left Southern New Jersey that she realized her experience of New Jersey was at odds with the well- known, and more derisive representation of her state. CRANBERRY QUEEN is due at least in part to this realization.

DeMarco is currently working on her next novel, about a modern day Undine Spragg meeting up with today's Sammy Glick—as they move about Los Angeles, New York, and (of course) New Jersey.

Talk Miramax Books will publish CRANBERRY QUEEN in June 2001.

Author Book Tour

May 31st: Princeton, NJ - Barnes & Noble reading & signing, 7:30 p.m.

June 4: Washington, DC - Olsson's Books & Records reading & signing, 7:00 p.m.

June 6: Marlton, NJ - Barnes & Noble reading & signing, 8:00 p.m.

June 7: Philadelphia, PA - Barnes & Noble reading & signing, 7:00 p.m.

June 11: Los Angeles, CA - Book Soup reading & siging, 8:00 p.m.

June 13: New York City, NY - Barnes & Noble/Astor Place reading & siging 7:30 p.m.

July 7: Chatham, MA (Cape Cod) - Yellow Umbrella reading & signing/reception 3:00-5:00 p.m.

July 12: Boston, MA - Cambridge Public Library, reading & signing 6:00 p.m.

July 13: Martha's Vineyard - Bunch of Grapes Bookstore reading & signing 7:30 p.m

Title: CRANBERRY QUEEN

Author: Kathleen DeMarco

Publication Date: June 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-7868-6765-5

Price: $21.95 U.S./$29.95 CAN