When We Were the Kennedys

Winner of the 2012 Sarton Memoir Award <p/>Every few years a memoir comes along that revitalizes the form...With generous precise and unsentimental prose Monica Wood brilliantly achieves this . . . <em>When We Were the Kennedys</em> is a deeply moving gem!--Andre Dubus III author of <em>House of Sand and Fog</em> and <em>Townie</em> <p/>Mexico Maine 1963: The Wood family is much like its close Catholic immigrant neighbors all dependent on the fathers' wages from the Oxford Paper Company. But when Dad suddenly dies on his way to work Mum and the four deeply connected Wood girls are set adrift. <em>When We Were the Kennedys</em> is the story of how a family a town and then a nation mourns and finds the strength to move on. <p/>On her own terms wry and empathetic Wood locates the melodies in the aftershock of sudden loss.--<em>Boston Globe</em> <p/>[A] marvel of storytelling layered and rich. It is by turns a chronicle of the renowned paper mill that was both pride and poison to several generations of a town; a tribute to the ethnic stew of immigrant families that grew and prospered there; and an account of one family's grief love and resilience.--<em>Maine Sunday Telegram </em>