Author, LAURA Carino-SCHROFF, speaking and signing her new book, An Invisible Thread.
“Excuse me lady, do you have any spare change? I am hungry.”
This simple question marked the beginning of an extraordinary, unlikely friendship that ultimately transformed two lives. In Laura Schroff’s first book, based on her own true story, An Invisible Thread narrates the surprising connection between a busy ad executive and a hungry little boy, Maurice Mazyck . The result is a complex and moving tale of how two lives were meant to converge on a Manhattan street corner one fateful day. “Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it,” writes Schroff. “Some may call it spirit. Some might call it heart. Whatever it was, it drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread. And whatever it is, it binds us still.” In An Invisible Thread, Schroff recounts how this chance encounter, followed by a simple lunch at McDonald’s shared between strangers, became the foundation for a weekly ritual and a life-changing friendship of shared experiences. Schroff and her co-author Alex Tresniowski beautifully weave the story of 11-year-old Maurice – born to an abusive father, drug-addicted mother and living in welfare hotels with his knife-wielding grandmother – with Schroff’s seemingly disparate life, poignantly revealing how Maurice’s childhood echoed Schroff’s own in Long Island, NY, where her father’s violent alcoholic tirades wreaked havoc on the family.
