Once a happily married businessman, an avid golfer, and the proud owner of several luxury cars and three boats, conservative-minded Richard LeMieux saw his fortune change almost overnight. In this astonishingly heartfelt memoir, he describes his descent into homelessness and his struggle to survive personal economic disaster.
Evicted from his home in July of 2002 and living with his dog, Willow, in a beat-up old van, LeMieux finds himself in circumstances most of us fear but few ever face. Penniless and estranged from family and friends, he panhandles in front of the gourmet grocery store where he used to shop, dines at The Salvation Army (Sally’s), attempts suicide, and is treated at a mental hospital, where he is diagnosed with depression so severe that it prevents him from remembering his children’s names.
With no faith or hope lest, he searches for redemption and finds it in the most unlikely places. Writing on a secondhand manual typewriter, first at a picnic table in a public park, and then wherever he can, LeMieux describes his own odyssey, and the quirky, diverse, and endearing cast of characters found among the homeless people of Bremerton, Washington, and, by extension, everywhere else.
Breakfast at Sally’s is a rare inside look at how the other America lives, how extreme poverty can exist on the doorstep of an incredible affluent society, and how one man, beaten down and alone, was able to reconnect, to find good people, and ultimately, with their help, to persevere.
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