Ross, Cecily

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Ross, Cecily

PERSONAL:

Married second husband, Basil Guinane; children: (first marriage) two daughters.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Creemore, Ontario, Canada. Agent—c/o Author Mail, The McGraw-Hill Companies, P.O. Box 182604, Columbus, OH 43272.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, and editor. Globe and Mail, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, senior editor, writer, and food critic.

WRITINGS:

Love in the Time of Cholesterol: A Memoir with Recipes, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to newspapers, including the New York Times.

SIDELIGHTS:

Cecily Ross is an editor and journalist who serves as a senior writer for the Globe and Mail in Toronto. Ross is also a woman who defied the odds, and conventional wisdom, to remarry at the age of forty-six. One of her career-minded daughters was against the marriage, still mindful of the trauma caused by her parents' divorce. Ross also discovered another fact about marriage and women over fortyfive: "The reason so few women over forty-five marry isn't that they can't find a husband. It's that they don't want one," commented Ted Byfield and Virginia Byfield in the Alberta Report. "They prefer independence." Despite these factors, Ross entered into marriage with thirty-nine-year-old Basil Guinane, a union that, at the outset, was happy. Without warning, however, a health crisis struck Basil: he suffered a heart attack and required emergency open-heart surgery to save his life. Initially unwilling to face the problem, Basil even shrugged off his first heart attack. However, Guinane's condition would not allow him to remain in denial for long.

In her book, Love in the Time of Cholesterol: A Memoir with Recipes, Ross describes in detail the kind of denial that people like her husband experience when faced with such a profound health crisis, and why they often ignore their symptoms and neglect to seek medical attention. Ross writes in-depth about her husband's condition and about the many clues that led to his diagnosis of unstable angina. She also chronicles the surgery, Guinane's bouts with depression and anxiety, and his ultimate recovery in the two years following his surgery. A couple who enjoyed their food (Ross also served as the food critic for the Globe and Mail), they found themselves in a situation where dietary changes were necessary not only to continued good health, but to survival. The book includes more than two dozen recipes for dishes that support heart health and that are flavorful as well.

Ross "writes with the confidence of an experienced journalist," observed Pamela Cuthbert in the Globe and Mail, creating "a sort of self-help handbook that encourages healthy diets, but not without pleasure." A reviewer on Health News Digest commented that Ross's work offers "deft prose that blends insight, tenderness and a generous dollop of humor," while Library Journal critic Howard Fuller called Ross's book a "wonderfully written, heartfelt story about life after her husband's heart surgery." A Publishers Weekly contributed concluded that "families coping with heart disease will no doubt find that the reassuring love tale of Basil and Cecily rings true."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Ross, Cecily, Love in the Time of Cholesterol: A Memoir with Recipes, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Alberta Report, March 30, 1998, Ted Byfield and Virginia Byfield, "If Commitment Has Become Unfashionable Then Our Society Hasn't Long to Go," p. 41.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), February 4, 2006, Pamela Cuthbert, "Affair of the Heart," review of Love in the Time of Cholesterol: A Memoir with Recipes, p. D10.

Library Journal, November 15, 2005, Howard Fuller, review of Love in the Time of Cholesterol, p. 88.

Publishers Weekly, December 12, 2005, review of Love in the Time of Cholesterol, p. 58.