The Autobiography of Maria Callas: A Novel

by Alam H. Bond / Available on Amazon

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MariaCallas

The Autobiography of Maria Callas: A Novel is a  fictionalized account of the well-known and not so widely known details of the tempestuous and passionate, creative and private life of the internationally acclaimed diva. The soaring heights of her talents, the fears of her decline, written from a psychological, highly controversial perspective.

 

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Alma Halbert Bond is a retired Freudian psychoanalyst whose love of opera and the fabled soprano Maria Callas led her to write this partly fictionalized psycho-autobiography, in the form of a novel. This is an ambitious psychological look at Callas’s life, and Bond’s claim to authority is in the analytical end, not the historian’s craft, but she has done her homework.Some intense Callas fans have taken Bond fiercely to task for even daring to write a book dealing with their goddess’s motivations and feelings. No one can know what goes on in the mind of another, and this sort of psychological analysis–which does not benefit from any first-hand consultation with its subject–can only be educated guesswork at best. Still, many of Bond’s educated guesses make sense and help to fill in the puzzle that was Maria Callas. If the first-person narrative sometimes fails to work as planned, Bond’s love of her subject shines through, and fans of the great diva should give this book a try. –Sarah Bryan Miller

 Review

“An admirable job of balancing fact and conjecture, with a sense of the Callas I knew. . . .” –– DALLAS MORNING NEWS, by John Ardoin

“Weds fact and fiction into an extraordinary portrait of Maria Callas: daughter, sister, wife, lover, thwarted mother, artist . . . who, in the still small hours of the morning becomes a vulnerable, fragile creature who weeps tragic tears into her pillow. . . .” –Joy Davidson, world-renowned mezzo-soprano

 

About the Author

Alma H. Bond, PhD, is a psychoanalyst and the author of 19 published books.  She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University, graduated from the post-doctoral program in psychoanalysis at the Freudian Society, and was a psychoanalyst in private practice for thirty-seven years in New York City. She ”retired” to become a full-time writer, but now maintains a small practice in addition to writing. Her last book, Margaret Mahler, a Biography of the Psychoanalyst, received two awards: Best Books Award Finalist, USA Book News; and Foreword Magazine s Book of the Year Finalist.Her Maria Callas book, The Autobiography of Maria Callas: A Novel, was first runner-up in the Hemingway Days novel contest.

Her sixteen other published books include: Camille Claude: A Novel; Old Age is a Terminal Illness; Who Killed Virginia Woolf?: A Psychobiography; Tales of Psychology: Short Stories to Make You Wise; I Married Dr. Jekyll and Woke Up Mrs. Hyde; Is There Life After Analysis?; On Becoming a Grandparent; America’s First Woman Warrior: The Story of Deborah Sampson (with Lucy Freeman); and a children’s book, The Tree That Could Fly.

See a complete list of Dr. Bond’s books. 

Dr. Bond also wrote the play, Maria, about the life and loves of Maria Callas, which was produced off-off Broadway and is currently touring Florida.

Dr. Bond is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Dramatists Guild, and the Authors Guild, as well as a fellow and faculty member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, the International Psychoanalytic Association, and the American Psychological Association.

Dr. Bond is the widow of Rudy Bond, the acclaimed stage, screen, and television actor, and author of I Rode a Streetcar Named Desire. She is the mother of three children, Zane P. Bond, Jonathan H. Bond, and Janet Bond Brill, all of whom are published authors, and she is the proud grandmother of eight, none of whom has published a book . . . yet. But, as a wise friend of Alma’s put it, ”In her family, it’s pretty much publish or perish.”

For more information, Alma Bond’s website: alma_bond.tripod.com/