Art and Artifice: A Memoir (Paperback)

Art and Artifice: A Memoir—A Story of Love, Deception, and Healing on the Texas Gulf Coast

In the mid-2000s, Gail Bergan was in the midst of a second divorce when she fell in love again—hard.

Paul was a colleague she’d worked with for more than a decade. When their stars collided, he seemed to be the one she’d waited for her entire life. He had exceptional artistic abilities and a deep desire to pursue a career as an artist that had lain unfulfilled since his college days. With encouragement and support from Gail, they both quit their jobs in Houston and moved to a small seaside town on the Texas Gulf Coast to open an art gallery that would showcase Paul’s work. The triumphant grand opening of their gallery took place in September 2005. What happened 4 weeks later detonated a bomb that blew Gail’s world apart, reverberating in her life for the next 10 years.

In Art and Artifice, Gail’s debut memoir, she describes the familiar patterns of getting involved with a narcissist: love bombing, emotional control and manipulation, gaslighting, abandonment—then return and repeat. She also describes how a brilliant therapist helped her break the pattern of control and set her on the path to healing. Gail wrote this memoir to help other women recognize these dangerous liaisons and to offer hope, solidarity, and support for those who choose to walk away.