Winner of the 2012 Sarton Memoir Award
"Every few years, a memoir comes along that revitalizes the form...With generous, precise, and unsentimental prose, Monica Wood brilliantly achieves this . . . "When We Were the Kennedys" is a deeply moving gem "--Andre Dubus III, author of "House of Sand and Fog" and "Townie"
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. "When We Were the Kennedys" is the story of how a family, a town, and then a nation mourns and finds the strength to move on.
"On her own terms, wry and empathetic, Wood locates the melodies in the aftershock of sudden loss."--"Boston Globe"
" 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."--"Maine Sunday Telegram "

"Like Elizabeth Strout, her fellow chronicler of small-town Maine life, Monica Wood imbues her characters with the complexity and humanity of real people. Ernie's Ark is as true as life."-Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train In ten interlinking stories, the town of Abbot Falls reacts as Ernie Whitten, pipefitter, builds a giant ark in his backyard. Ernie was weeks away from a pension-secured retirement when the union went on strike. Now his wife Marie is ill. Struck with sudden inspiration, Ernie builds the ark as a work of art for his wife to see from the window; a vessel to carry them both away; or a plea for God to spare Marie, come hell or high water. As the ark takes shape, the rest of the town carries on. There's Dan Little, a building-code enforcer who comes to fine Ernie for the ark and makes a significant discovery about himself; Francine Love, a precocious thirteen-year-old who longs to be a part of the family-like world of the union workers; and Atlantic Pulp & Paper CEO Henry John McCoy, an impatient man wearily determined to be a good father to his twenty-six-year-old daughter. The people of Abbott Falls will try their best to hold a community together, against the fiercest of odds. . . . Few writers can capture the extraordinary within seemingly ordinary lives as does Monica Wood. An unforgettable tapestry of love, loneliness-and neighbors.

She may be 104 years old, but Ona Vitkus is on a mission and it's all because of THE ONE-IN-A-MILLION-BOY... Monica Wood's unforgettable novel about a boy in a million and the 104-year-old woman who saves his family is not to be missed by readers who loved THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY, ELIZABETH IS MISSING or THE SHOCK OF THE FALL. 'A lovely, quirky novel about misfits across generations' Daily Mail 'A bittersweet story about finding friendship in the most unlikely of places' Good Housekeeping. The story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don't they teach you anything at school? So says 104-year-old Ona to the 11-year-old boy who's been sent to help her out every Saturday morning. As he refills the bird feeders and tidies the garden shed, Ona tells him about her long life, from first love to second chances. Soon she's confessing secrets she has kept hidden for decades. One Saturday, he doesn't show up. Ona starts to think he's not so special after all, but then his father Quinn arrives on her doorstep, determined to finish his son's good deed. The boy's mother is not so far behind. Ona is set to discover that even at her age the world can surprise you, and that sometimes sharing a loss is the only way to find yourself again. What readers are saying about ONE IN A MILLION BOY: 'Delightful, quirky and heart-warming' 'A richly layered novel of hearts broken seemingly beyond repair and then bound by a stunning act of human devotion' 'With heart-breaking and emotional moments intertwined with humour and love, THE ONE IN A MILLION BOY proves it's never too late to make new friends'

He came to me first in a dream, as a crippled dog angling down a country lane, puzzled by his sudden age, his bum paw, the dry stick clamped between his teeth. I’d been expecting this dream for a very long time, and I woke up moving. . . .

Rita Rosario has a gift, a way with people. She listens to them and really sees them for who they are–warts and all. And sometimes, she even knows how to guide them toward a new beginning. Women, even men, come to Rita’s beauty shop for perms, town gossip, and the makeovers of their very lives.

John Reed first appears to Rita in one of her dreams. When they meet at a town gathering a few days later, she immediately offers him a haircut, and her heart. As they share their stories, Rita senses she can help John fill a void by reconnecting him to his only family–a young niece he nearly lost in a heartbreaking tragedy. While inspiring John on a journey out of loneliness and into reconciliation, Rita begins to come to terms with events in her past . . . and discovers things about herself she never realized, including her own intimate role in John’s unfolding story.