Drifting, Falling

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Remorseful call girl decides to atone for her crime by killing herself. Suicide. It’s the end of the beginning.  

Twenty-one year old Ripley Luna, plucky, resourceful survivor of trauma, college student by day, call girl by night, plots her escape from PTSD hell, despite the best efforts of her psychiatrist, and with the help of her best friend, Mort, by considering suicide as atonement for her commission of a crime.  

Drifting, Falling — Diary of a Call Girl Suicide, chronicles the story of Ripley Luna, a smart, beautiful young woman who suffered multiple childhood traumas that set her on a collision course with her fate to kill herself. Ripley, whose name is an homage to the protagonist of the Alien movies, dreamed as a child of becoming an astronaut.   Her dream derailed by the jetsam of her traumas, she earns a living in the only way she knows how — as a courtesan for a stable of rich clients.  During the day, she attends college to broaden her horizons while at night, she sails the bed sheets, not the stars as she had dreamed. Her natural inquisitiveness and intelligence prod her to better herself.  Ripley peels back the layers of her life with humor and sarcasm.  With the help of her psychiatrist, Dan Truscott, a man deep in his own moral quagmire, and Mort, her best friend, she tries to navigate her way off the Earth into space.  Ripley, ever fond of astronaut lore and with a predilection for Greek mythology, will keep you guessing whether the Lost Moon slogan of Apollo 13 “Failure is not an option” — will come to pass.  

"In a voice at turns wry and tender, Ullman brings to life a woman who may be damaged by the dark roads life has taken her down, but it's her strength readers will remember; her singular sense of self. Not since Alien has a Ripley been more riveting." 

-- Deborah E. Kennedy, author of Tornado Weather

"A. J. Ullman's writing is as sexy and smart as his characters in this dark but enlightening cat-and-mouse tale about a troubled call girl and her beguiled therapist."
-- Jim DeBrosse, author of "Hidden City."

"A tantalizing journey into the mind of a depressed young woman tortured with her life's traumas and poor choices. You will find yourself standing on the ledge with her, the same ledge that exists in each of our minds when life becomes too much to bear. I hope that you never have to stand on this ledge; but, this book will take you there. Will you jump? Will someone be there to catch you?"

-- Dean Visk, MSN, Director of Behavioral Health at a Cincinnati community mental health center

Publication date: October 6, 2017, available in print or digital version from Moonshine Cove Publishing.