Every few years, a memoir comes along that revitalizes the form. When We Were the Kennedys is a deeply moving gem!
Winner of the 2012 Sarton Memorial Award. A luminous memoir from Maine author Monica Wood about a family navigating sudden loss in 1963—just as the nation mourns JFK. Set in Mexico, Maine, this deeply moving story captures how a mill town community finds courage through grief. “A deeply moving gem!” —Andre Dubus III
$18.99
Winner of the 2012 Sarton Memorial Award
Mexico, Maine, 1963. The Wood family’s world shifts on its axis when their father dies suddenly on his way to work at the Oxford Paper Company. Left adrift, Mum and her four daughters must navigate the uncharted waters of grief—just as the nation reels from President Kennedy’s assassination. In this luminous memoir, Monica Wood weaves together personal loss and collective mourning, capturing how a family, a town, and a country find the courage to carry on.
Wood’s prose is generous, precise, and deeply empathetic. She brings to life the tight-knit community of Catholic immigrant families whose fortunes rose and fell with the paper mill—”both pride and poison to several generations,” as the Maine Sunday Telegram notes. Through her wry, unsentimental lens, she reveals the melodies hidden in the aftershock of sudden loss.
“Every few years, a memoir comes along that revitalizes the form,” writes Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog and Townie. “When We Were the Kennedys is a deeply moving gem!”
This is storytelling at its finest—layered, rich, and achingly real. Wood’s tribute to her family’s resilience and her hometown’s spirit will resonate with anyone who has weathered loss and emerged changed but unbroken. A marvel of a book that lingers long after the last page.
Every few years, a memoir comes along that revitalizes the form. When We Were the Kennedys is a deeply moving gem!
A beautiful memoir, both heartbreaking and uplifting.
Wood has written a lovely memoir of her childhood in small-town Maine, and of the loss of her father when she was nine... Highly recommended.
Wood's evocative memoir recalls a time and place where grief and hope coexisted, and where the bonds of family and community helped heal the deepest wounds.
A moving and beautifully written memoir.
Graceful and moving... Wood's spare, elegant prose captures both the particular details of her family's story and the universal experience of loss.
| Weight | 0.45 lbs |
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| Dimensions | 5.31 × 0.69 × 8.00 in |
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| Subject | 20th Century, American, Biography & Autobiography, Catholic, Christianity, Cultural, Ethnic & Regional, Essays, Hispanic & Latino, History, Inspirational, Literary Collections, Literary Criticism, Literary Figures, Personal Memoirs, Religion, Religious, Shakespeare, Short Stories, United States, Women, Women Authors |
12 Perkins Cove Rd,
Ogunquit, ME 03907
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