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Splitting the Difference

A Heart-Shaped Memoir

Published by She Writes Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

At 18, Tré Miller-Rodríguez gave her newborn daughter up for adoption. At 19, her only sibling was killed in a car crash. At 34, she lost her husband to a sudden heart attack. Then, at 36, her now-teenaged daughter found her on Facebook—and began to reshape the course of Tré’s life. With sharp, immediate prose, Tré unpacks the experience of being young and widowed in New York City: the “dumb sh*% people say”; the “brave face” she wears to work and social events; the solace she doesn’t find in one-night stands; and how her perspective only begins to shift when she spontaneously brings Alberto’s ashes on a trip and sets into motion the ritual of spreading him in bodies of water around the world. Once she’s begun, Tré discovers that traveling to her bucket list destinations—places like Savannah, Brazil, and Cuba—is a viable strategy for facing her roughest days, and her loss of her husband becomes a lens through which she begins to view her past and embrace her future. By the end of her journey, Tré has quit her corporate job, explored Alberto’s homeland of Cuba, and joyfully reunited with her biological daughter in North Carolina. Equal parts inspiring, irreverent, and heart-rending, Splitting the Difference is written with the “raw-thenticity” of a woman transformed by heartbreak and inspired by love’s legacy.

About The Author

Tré Miller Rodríguez was born in California and lives in New York City. An award-winning copywriter and UC Berkeley graduate, her essays have appeared in Manhattan Magazine, and on The Daily Beast and WhiteElephantInTheRoom.com. This is her first book.

Product Details

  • Publisher: She Writes Press (March 5, 2013)
  • Length: 293 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781938314216

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Raves and Reviews

“Story of a woman turning grief into courage...Blogospheric immediacy charges the book's pages. At once touching and shockingly stark...Gripping, real.” —Publishers Weekly

“No other book entangles romance and grief in such an urgent and beautiful way. Tré Miller Rodríguez writes as she lives: with breathless poise, unmatched style and fierce bravery.”
—Claire Bidwell Smith, author of The Rules of Inheritance

“Splitting the Difference is a story of love and loss told with flair, ballsy bravado and unflinching honesty.”
—Susan Shapiro, author of 5 Men Who Broke My Heart

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