With wit, humor and imagination, the author entertains us with stories of growing up a second-generation Italian-American in Brooklyn during the Depression amidst a large clan of relatives. Among the family members we meet are his grandfather, a “piece of work,” his strong-willed mother, a real “Italian Mama,” and his musically gifted brother, a boyhood friend of Tony Bennett.

In telling his life story, the author reflects upon his rich and varied life experiences. He relives his indoctrination into the Catholic Church (complete with stories of his erotic altar boy outings to Coney Island), boyhood vacations to an Italian resort in upstate New York, adventures in Europe as a young man, meeting the girl of his dreams, marrying and raising a family.

Let it Be a Dance is, ultimately, the story of one man’s evolution from a physical-training instructor in the army in WW II, to a ballroom dance teacher and performer in a Catskill Mountain resort, to a professor of psychology (where he was dubbed “Crazy Frank”) and psychotherapist, and finally to a retiree with a life filled with creative opportunities. He writes, “Being not famous, rich, or powerful, if I do not tell my story, who will?”

—The Rev. Dr. Mel White, Founder of Soulforce and author of Stranger at the Gate and Religion Gone Bad

“Crossing the Bridge is a courageous memoir by a psychologist who has lived two lives, as a devoted husband for twenty-two years, and the father of two children, and as a gay man enjoying a stable and loving relationship with another man… Dr. James Helmuth grew up within the painfully narrow confines of the Mennonite religion and nearly took his own life in the process of discovering and living his true gay identity.

Unsparingly honest, this memoir reads often like a mystery story, sometimes like a tender recreation of the past — always as a poignant, bittersweet narrative of a boy becoming a man…and a man becoming his true self.”

—Joseph Dispenza, author of God On Your Own and The Way of the Traveler

“What distinguishes Helmuth’s story and gives it universality is how Helmuth, in finding his own voice, leaves no one he loves behind….he shows in this memoir how we must all achieve freedom or our lives become impossible. I suspect you will come to love the man and his unique voice; his journey belongs to us all.”

Thomas Dukes, Ph.D. English Professor, The University of Akron

—The Rev. Dr. Mel White, Founder of Soulforce and author of Stranger at the Gate and Religion Gone Bad

“Crossing the Bridge is a courageous memoir by a psychologist who has lived two lives, as a devoted husband for twenty-two years, and the father of two children, and as a gay man enjoying a stable and loving relationship with another man… Dr. James Helmuth grew up within the painfully narrow confines of the Mennonite religion and nearly took his own life in the process of discovering and living his true gay identity.

Unsparingly honest, this memoir reads often like a mystery story, sometimes like a tender recreation of the past — always as a poignant, bittersweet narrative of a boy becoming a man…and a man becoming his true self.”

—Joseph Dispenza, author of God On Your Own and The Way of the Traveler

“What distinguishes Helmuth’s story and gives it universality is how Helmuth, in finding his own voice, leaves no one he loves behind….he shows in this memoir how we must all achieve freedom or our lives become impossible. I suspect you will come to love the man and his unique voice; his journey belongs to us all.”

Thomas Dukes, Ph.D. English Professor, The University of Akron

—The Rev. Dr. Mel White, Founder of Soulforce and author of Stranger at the Gate and Religion Gone Bad

“Crossing the Bridge is a courageous memoir by a psychologist who has lived two lives, as a devoted husband for twenty-two years, and the father of two children, and as a gay man enjoying a stable and loving relationship with another man… Dr. James Helmuth grew up within the painfully narrow confines of the Mennonite religion and nearly took his own life in the process of discovering and living his true gay identity.

Unsparingly honest, this memoir reads often like a mystery story, sometimes like a tender recreation of the past — always as a poignant, bittersweet narrative of a boy becoming a man…and a man becoming his true self.”

—Joseph Dispenza, author of God On Your Own and The Way of the Traveler

“What distinguishes Helmuth’s story and gives it universality is how Helmuth, in finding his own voice, leaves no one he loves behind….he shows in this memoir how we must all achieve freedom or our lives become impossible. I suspect you will come to love the man and his unique voice; his journey belongs to us all.”

Thomas Dukes, Ph.D. English Professor, The University of Akron

The mother of emperors, kings and queens, herself sole sovereign over half the world for fifty-one years, Juana was Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Castile, Queen of Aragon, Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, Mexico, Peru and "all the lands to the west of Africa." Yet Simon & Schuster's great reference book The Timetables of History does not even mention her death in 1555. Two and a half centuries before the United States was born, Juana the First of Spain attempted to establish a democratic government that would have spanned the Americas from pole to pole. How could such a person simply vanish into a footnote of modern times? Betrayed first by her husband, then her father, then her son, Juana was declared insane. Under iron-clad secrecy she was committed to the horrors of a stone room without light for nearly a decade. The answer seems all too sinister. She was a young widow never trained to rule, sitting on the throne of the greatest empire of the time. She was a woman too passionate, too outspoken, too much trouble. The dark secret for five hundred years was an international conspiracy. She was made to disappear.

Juana's appearance in a Twentieth Century office building was independently perceived by other people at the same time. And what is to be made of her odd Birth Card connections with the author?

The mother of emperors, kings and queens, herself sole sovereign over half the world for fifty-one years, Juana was Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Castile, Queen of Aragon, Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, Mexico, Peru and "all the lands to the west of Africa." Yet Simon & Schuster's great reference book The Timetables of History does not even mention her death in 1555. Two and a half centuries before the United States was born, Juana the First of Spain attempted to establish a democratic government that would have spanned the Americas from pole to pole. How could such a person simply vanish into a footnote of modern times? Betrayed first by her husband, then her father, then her son, Juana was declared insane. Under iron-clad secrecy she was committed to the horrors of a stone room without light for nearly a decade. The answer seems all too sinister. She was a young widow never trained to rule, sitting on the throne of the greatest empire of the time. She was a woman too passionate, too outspoken, too much trouble. The dark secret for five hundred years was an international conspiracy. She was made to disappear.

Juana's appearance in a Twentieth Century office building was independently perceived by other people at the same time. And what is to be made of her odd Birth Card connections with the author?

The mother of emperors, kings and queens, herself sole sovereign over half the world for fifty-one years, Juana was Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Castile, Queen of Aragon, Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, Mexico, Peru and "all the lands to the west of Africa." Yet Simon & Schuster's great reference book The Timetables of History does not even mention her death in 1555. Two and a half centuries before the United States was born, Juana the First of Spain attempted to establish a democratic government that would have spanned the Americas from pole to pole. How could such a person simply vanish into a footnote of modern times? Betrayed first by her husband, then her father, then her son, Juana was declared insane. Under iron-clad secrecy she was committed to the horrors of a stone room without light for nearly a decade. The answer seems all too sinister. She was a young widow never trained to rule, sitting on the throne of the greatest empire of the time. She was a woman too passionate, too outspoken, too much trouble. The dark secret for five hundred years was an international conspiracy. She was made to disappear.

Juana's appearance in a Twentieth Century office building was independently perceived by other people at the same time. And what is to be made of her odd Birth Card connections with the author?

This riveting family saga about the son of a Polish-Jewish immigant to Canada is told in 17 short stories that blend tragedy and humor. The overarching figure is Jacob, who loses his mother at three and is raised by his stepmother. His father, from an orthodox Jewish home in Lodz, escapes from the Polish army under bizarre circumstances and searches for a place to settle. After a stint in Germany and Palestine as a chalutz (pioneer), he tries to settle in the US but is hounded as an illegal immigrant and finally finds a home in Montreal, where Jacob is born and bred. After high school, Jacob tries working in his father’s printing shop but finds business not appealing. His parents give him violin lessons, and as a teenager he studies music seriously. Near the end of World War II, Jacob begins his academic career, receiving his BA at McGill and his PhD at Princeton. His mentors are two prominent neuropsychologists and his professional career is rich with anecdotes. After a ‘sexual apprenticeship,’ he marries Raquel and has four children. The tragic deaths of Raquel, first and then of his eldest daughter shatter the family. Jacob divorces twice before finding happiness with his present wife.

“…a masterpiece of its kind—a brilliant, original book that not only gives the reader new understanding of why Virginia Woolf committed suicide but also brings him new depths in the understanding of his own life…A flowing, emphatic style of writing that keeps you turning the page to learn more of the torment in Woolf’s life from infancy on that drove her to kill herself.” —Lucy Freeman, past President of Mystery Writers of America and author of The Beloved Prison: A Journey Through the Unknown Mind (St. Martin’s Press, 1989)

“Alma Bond’s work on Virginia Woolf and the relationship between her early life experience and her profound creative talents is a tour de force.” —Natatlie Shainess, M.D., New York, New York

“Outstanding—a profound and in-depth presentation.” —Barry M. Panter, M.D., Ph.D., President, American Institute of Medical Education, Burbank, California