Peggy’s life seems solid from the outside—successful career, stable marriage, hard-earned independence. But when her husband informs her he’s had enough and is leaving, everything she thought was secure begins to crack. In that moment, she realizes she has been repeating toxic behaviors she saw modeled long ago. Turning back toward family history she spent years trying to outrun, she begins examining her parents’ traumatic upbringings and her own inherited damage. Summoning the inner toughness that Peggy’s artisan father—the “strong glass” of the title—exhibited, her resolute efforts allow empathy and compassion for her flawed parents to flow into her life. What begins as a jolt of painful clarity steadily moves toward understanding and absolution, shattering a cycle of generational trauma that once seemed unbreakable. In Strong Glass, M.D. (Peggy) Roblyer delivers an unflinching memoir about facing the past to find forgiveness.
M. D. ROBLYER, retired professor of educational technology, authored a dozen Pearson Education textbooks, including Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, which introduced a novel approach to the discipline in 1996 and immediately became its bestselling text. It remains the field leader today in ninth edition. Strong Glass is her first nonacademic book; she is at work on another. Her creative writing has appeared in Orange Blossom Books, TrashLight Press, and Bright Flash Literary Review, among others. Two of her stories are Chattanooga Writers’ Guild contest winners. Roblyer lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with her husband.