PARIS – “I wrote the book because it was a story worth telling. … It’s that simple really,” said Michele Alberi Eshleman, a former Norway resident and 1985 graduate of then Oxford Hills High School.

Eshleman now lives with her two children near the mountains of Colorado.

More than 10 years after her brother was sentenced for molesting a 12-year-old local boy in 1995, Eshleman sat at a table Thursday afternoon with her laptop computer and copies of her book in a corner of the dimly-lit Smiling Moose Tavern in Market Square, just a mile down the street from the Oxford County Superior Court where her brother was sentenced.

“I lived the story so that I could tell it. It was meant to be told, and I have felt obligated to tell its truth to the best of my ability,” she said of the book that she called “difficult but cathartic” to write.

Eshleman and her family were well known in the community at the time of the sensational court case. She was a 1985 graduate of the Oxford Hills school system where she later taught English.

When her brother Marc Alberi pleaded guilty to eight counts of sexual misconduct after luring young boys to his home in Norway with expensive “toys” so he could molest them, the stage was set for a life-changing journey that Eshleman has used as the basis of her book, “Reaching Out From the Inside.”

The names in the story, inspired by the events of not only her brother’s life but that of her own in the ensuing years, have been altered to protect the privacy of families who were the subject of headlines and television news throughout Maine 10 years ago. The author wrote under the pen name Michelle Lewis.

“It was very challenging because it was a true story and initially a painful experience,” said Eshleman, who teaches English in a Colorado high school.

“It really needed me jumping in fully,” Eshleman said of the writing process that took her five years, including one year writing full-time while on leave from her teaching job.

Her brother, who is living in the Bangor area working in construction, has read a draft of the book.

“It’s my experience. It’s not my brother’s experience,” explained Eshleman. “He read an earlier draft and he was excited. But this is a story that needed to be told from a step back.”

She has not spoken to any of the victims or their families since her brother’s sentencing when she and other family members tried to come to terms with their separate grief. “Both sides were hurt by it,” she said.

Eshleman said she does not know if the victims are aware of the book because she has had no contact with them.

“There is opportunity for healing in this story. That’s why I told the story,” she said. “It’s really about the evolution of my consciousness spiritually.”

Eshleman said she learned from the experience that people need honest communication. “Not telling about things is how my brother got into what he did. Feeling he had to hide,” she explained.

“People are afraid of rejection so we’re not really honest with ourselves and others. We feel lonely because of it,” she continued.

The book, the first of three she will write about her journey, opens up not only the pain she encountered from her brother’s case but the subsequent test that she and her family and her own marriage endured.

“It’s definitely a risky thing to put out there,” she said of her own experiences.

She said her family, most of whom still live in the area, has mixed feelings about the book. Her mother, for example, is reluctant to read it for fear of opening up old wounds. Other family members have read it and are pleased. Others say its a page-turner, compelling and inspirational.

“People have told me they embrace who they are (as a result of reading the book.) They open up,” she said.

The book, which includes a question section at the end for discussion groups, is available through Amazon.com. Personally-signed copies are available through the author’s Web site at www.MythicHeart.com. Books N Things on Main Street in Norway is also carrying the book, as are other booksellers throughout the state.