Coming of Age With Room Service Please

Coming of Age With Room Service Please

By Linda Roberts

Riveting green eyes stare back at the reader from the cover of Alicia Cahalane Lewis’ newly published coming-of-age novella, Room Service Please.

Author Alicia Cahalane Lewis

The startling eyes are those of the book’s heroine, Miss Edie May, whose story traces the momentous day of June 18, 1922 in the life of a young girl who became a “modern” woman during the Roaring ‘20s.

Mistaken for a movie starlet while attending a party at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, Edie May struggles with what life has suddenly handed her. She uses her ingenuity and ability to cope with what comes her way to “keep dancing” and stay ahead of her past and present situation.

The heroine’s words speak to the reader from the novella’s prologue:

“Sometime in that moment when life takes your hand and ushers you through a door, the door revolves, your hand gets pulled, and you step eagerly into an unknown. I won’t say that this motion is an easy one, but one to behold for it happens to us all. We go through this door ushered in by only our absurd sense of self, our darn attitude, and our attempt at something reasonable, yet uncertain.”

Lewis says she can relate to the character she created in Edie May and she intended to have her book serve as a voice for young women. The novella’s heroine puts a contemporary voice to an age-old problem— young women struggling with self worth and possibly depression.

The book came to life fifteen years ago. It started as a novel before eventually emerging as a 137-page novella, allowing Edie May to face her struggles over the course of one day, thus releasing her character from a longer tenure at the hotel that a novel would create.

A prolific writer, Lewis holds an MFA in creative writing from Naropa University in Colorado, and her talents include the publication of poetry and chapbooks, as well as other books. The Intrepid Meditator, which invites readers to tear up their own script and start anew much as she did, is the companion book to Room Service Please published last year. In it, Lewis shares her spiritual journey and heartfelt strategies on what it means to live in balance.

“It was a happy accident that I couldn’t find an agent (for her first book),” said Lewis, who started her own publishing company, Tattered Script Publishing, as the result. With Tattered Script, she is building a platform to launch her own work and feels that she can also help others with their writing.

“Writing to me is about vision—looking out and then bringing that awareness inside the self,” she said.

A Frederick County resident and a ninthgeneration descendant of the Shenandoah Valley Quakers, Lewis grew up independent and devoted to reading and writing. She said she gained inner strength from her mother and grandmothers, all of whom tried their hand at acting. Her two daughters taught her to be true to herself.

Room Service Please offers much insight into issues that challenge women to trust in themselves, while at the same time providing “a fun read.”

Second Chapter Books in Middleburg and the Winchester Book Gallery carry copies of Room Service Please. Details tatteredscript.com and aliciacahalanelewis.com.