⇒ Libro Gratis When We Were the Kennedys A Memoir from Mexico Maine Monica Wood 9780547630144 Books

When We Were the Kennedys A Memoir from Mexico Maine Monica Wood 9780547630144 Books

Download As PDF : When We Were the Kennedys A Memoir from Mexico Maine Monica Wood 9780547630144 Books

When We Were the Kennedys A Memoir from Mexico Maine Monica Wood 9780547630144 Books

Disclaimer: I grew up in Maine, my uncle and several of my very good friends work in paper mills, and I have recently discovered the beauty which is Monica Wood's writing. (I just finished One-In-A-Million Boy.) Odds were good I would enjoy this memoir. And I did.

It was touching, poignant, and so well written. I felt very similar to A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, mostly because of the timeframe, excellent writing and that it was a coming-of-age story about a young girl. But a Maine mill town and Brooklyn are two very different creatures.

I can't do Wood's book justice without quoting directly:
"The mill. The rumbling, hard-breathing monster that made steam and noise and grit and stench and dreams and livelihoods -- and paper."

(Regarding her sister) "This is how Betty dances: Like a phone pole. A fence picket. A frozen hen. Hopeless."

(Her uncle- a beloved priest) "He has this way of sounding simultaneously chummy and formal, making a child the delectable center of something rare and memorable."

(And ultimately, her stance on books) "I'd always loved books for their reassuring heft, for their promise of new words, for their air of mystery, for the characters who lived in them, for the sublime pleasure of disappearing."

This memoir was indeed a sublime pleasure.


Tags : When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine [Monica Wood] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. 1963, Mexico, Maine. The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic, immigrant neighbors, all dependent on a father’s wages from the Oxford Paper Company. Until the sudden death of Dad,Monica Wood,When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine,Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,054763014X,American authors;Biography.,Authors, American;20th century;Biography.,Mexico (Me. : Town);Biography.,20th century,Authors, American,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography & Autobiography Literary,Biography & Autobiography Personal Memoirs,Biography Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography,History United States 20th Century,Literary,Mexico (Me. : Town),Personal Memoirs,U.S. History - 20th Century (General),United States - 20th Century,Women As Authors (American Literature),Wood, Monica

When We Were the Kennedys A Memoir from Mexico Maine Monica Wood 9780547630144 Books Reviews

While I can enjoy reading the memoirs of those with whom I have little or nothing in common, I was particularly interested in this story of another American woman growing up in the same era as I did, also coming from a family of five children, and living in very similar economic circumstance. We wore the same kind of clothes, had the same leisure activities, and were influenced by the same children's books. There were certainly great similarities to my own childhood.

There were also huge differences. I grew up in a Protestant family, attending public schools, in a medium-size upper South city with multiple large and small employers. There were few Catholics, even fewer Jews, and no recent immigrants that I was aware of. The author's experience of growing up immersed in Catholicism, surrounded by those who were still struggling to assimilate into American culture, and (most of all) dominated by a single company made me feel that we grew up on different planets.

I thought that her parent's relationship was well drawn. In some ways, they were much alike, but her father was more out-going and confident. Clearly, staying in the apartment (which I found surprising) was the mother's choice. Her husband would have gone for the American dream of home-ownership if his wife hadn't considered it too risky. When I was young, everyone lived in a single-family home (mostly owned) and an apartment building would have been very exotic!

I was also interested in the character of her older sister Anne, who was really a generation separated from her younger sisters. Even in the fifties and sixties, it was common for young women to leave home before marriage and live alone or with young friends. Anne seems to have been (willingly or not) of the generation of women who were expected to live at home and contribute to the family economically and otherwise. I note that the brother (who was close to her in age) was regarded as an adult and expected to live his own life!

The family's deep identification with the Kennedys was typical of Catholics at that time. We have forgotten that the election of a Catholic to the presidency was a BIG DEAL! Do black families today have the same sense of identification with the Obamas? It's difficult to say.

This is a beautifully written, thought-provoking book. I had wanted to read it and was so glad to find it offered as a Daily Deal. I wasn't disappointed. It was every bit as good as I expected it to be.
I love books and then I LOVE books. This is off the charts. Monica Wood’s memoir WHEN WE WERE THE KENNEDYS is a story about life. While her extraordinary book is about her family and the town of Mexico, Maine, where she grew up, it is about loss and how with great loss comes love. A long time ago, my wise sister told me that without hate we would not know love. We were young at the time that she imparted this knowledge and I know that I didn’t fully understand the depth of what she so eloquently was trying to share with me, but I have carried her words with me. They still ring true to this day. Wood’s book is filled with great love – of family, friends and the ability to bounce back even with many setbacks. Her words are so beautiful they literally lift off the pages.

Don’t let this book fool you into thinking it is just about death, grief, and a sad family. Sure, they have their share of sorrow. It is quite the opposite and so much more. Wood has done a fine job sharing her childhood with her readers and a bygone era of industry and how it shaped a town, who rallied around each other.

In the book, Wood said, upon finding something special from her childhood “…maybe it was about loss itself – of people, livelihood, love – the things we lose and manage to find again. This is what it is to be twelve or thirty, or fifty-five to look back, with new eyes, on what you did not know you knew.”

This book is like opening a drawer and finding a special trinket that you’ve been searching for forever and you never want to let it out of your sight.

Oh, booklovers, I hope that you too can dig through the sorrow to discover the joy that I found in WHEN WE WERE THE KENNEDYS and the love that we all can see from the past and in the everyday.
Disclaimer I grew up in Maine, my uncle and several of my very good friends work in paper mills, and I have recently discovered the beauty which is Monica Wood's writing. (I just finished One-In-A-Million Boy.) Odds were good I would enjoy this memoir. And I did.

It was touching, poignant, and so well written. I felt very similar to A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, mostly because of the timeframe, excellent writing and that it was a coming-of-age story about a young girl. But a Maine mill town and Brooklyn are two very different creatures.

I can't do Wood's book justice without quoting directly
"The mill. The rumbling, hard-breathing monster that made steam and noise and grit and stench and dreams and livelihoods -- and paper."

(Regarding her sister) "This is how Betty dances Like a phone pole. A fence picket. A frozen hen. Hopeless."

(Her uncle- a beloved priest) "He has this way of sounding simultaneously chummy and formal, making a child the delectable center of something rare and memorable."

(And ultimately, her stance on books) "I'd always loved books for their reassuring heft, for their promise of new words, for their air of mystery, for the characters who lived in them, for the sublime pleasure of disappearing."

This memoir was indeed a sublime pleasure.