THE DEFENDER: Michele McKenzie
I love stories! Fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, and more.
I live in a world surrounded by printed material and pictures.
Best fun – matching up stories with people who will appreciate them.
I admit to being a bibliophile and a lover of the print word. I love libraries!
Michele McKenzie (Deputy CEO of the Clearview Public Library) is proud to introduce They Left Us Everything by Plum Johnson for your consideration.
THE BOOK: They Left Us Everything by Plum Johnson
After almost twenty years of caring for elderly parents—first for their senile father,and then for their cantankerous ninety-three-year-old mother—author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers experience conflicted feelings of grief and relief when their mother, the surviving parent, dies.
Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, which hasn’t been de-cluttered in more than half a century. Twenty-three rooms bulge with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum remembers her loving but difficult parents who could not have been more different: the British father, a handsome, disciplined patriarch who could not control his opinionated,extroverted Southern-belle wife who loved tennis and gin gimlets. The task consumes her, becoming more rewarding than she ever imagined.
Items from childhood trigger memories of her eccentric family growing up in a small town on the shores of Lake Ontario in the 1950’s and 60’s. But unearthing new facts about her parents helps her reconcile those relationships with a more accepting perspective about who they were and what they valued.
They Left Us Everything is a funny, touching memoir about the importance of preserving family history to make sense of the past and nurturing family bonds to safeguard the future. (Goodreads.com)