Joliet Girl
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$14.95
$14.95
per item
Author: Francine Marie Tolf
Reviews:
“Elegant, aching, and irresistible, Joliet Girl is a heartfelt and honest proof that while every family is different, every family is the same. A beautifully-written account of a remarkable family.”
— Pete Hautman
“Joliet Girl is a deep and complex pleasure, like a rainstorm or a saxophone playing ‘the tone of a lost afternoon.’ Tolf writes of childhood's grip on our lives, of loyalty, disappointment, and most beautifully, the particular joy that is laughter between sisters. This intense love has its echo in the power of these oldest bonds to break us, too. I felt I'd been allowed to slip in the back door of a life, watching how sisters, not so different from my own, lose one another and find their way. Francine Tolf writes with fierce, inquiring love and honesty, but it is the poetry in these pages— her observant eye and the beauty of her language—that gives this memoir resonance and haunting power.”
— Patricia Weaver Francisco, author of Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery
"Death, accident, memory, faith, loss, shame, love. A house. Poems. A town. The importance of art, connection and writing. And much more. This is a poignant evocation of a Midwestern life, a life whose contours reach beyond one life and one place."
— Christopher Cokinos, author of The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars
About the Author: Francine Marie Tolf’s essays have appeared in Mary Magazine, Under the Sun, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Apple Valley Review, among others. She has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Barbara Deming Foundation, the Loft Literary Center and the Elizabeth George Foundation. Tolf is the author of three poetry chapbooks (two from Pudding House Press, one from Plan B) as well as a full-length collection of poems, Rain, Lilies, Luck (North Star Press of St. Cloud). She lives in Minneapolis.
Reviews:
“Elegant, aching, and irresistible, Joliet Girl is a heartfelt and honest proof that while every family is different, every family is the same. A beautifully-written account of a remarkable family.”
— Pete Hautman
“Joliet Girl is a deep and complex pleasure, like a rainstorm or a saxophone playing ‘the tone of a lost afternoon.’ Tolf writes of childhood's grip on our lives, of loyalty, disappointment, and most beautifully, the particular joy that is laughter between sisters. This intense love has its echo in the power of these oldest bonds to break us, too. I felt I'd been allowed to slip in the back door of a life, watching how sisters, not so different from my own, lose one another and find their way. Francine Tolf writes with fierce, inquiring love and honesty, but it is the poetry in these pages— her observant eye and the beauty of her language—that gives this memoir resonance and haunting power.”
— Patricia Weaver Francisco, author of Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery
"Death, accident, memory, faith, loss, shame, love. A house. Poems. A town. The importance of art, connection and writing. And much more. This is a poignant evocation of a Midwestern life, a life whose contours reach beyond one life and one place."
— Christopher Cokinos, author of The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars
About the Author: Francine Marie Tolf’s essays have appeared in Mary Magazine, Under the Sun, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Apple Valley Review, among others. She has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Barbara Deming Foundation, the Loft Literary Center and the Elizabeth George Foundation. Tolf is the author of three poetry chapbooks (two from Pudding House Press, one from Plan B) as well as a full-length collection of poems, Rain, Lilies, Luck (North Star Press of St. Cloud). She lives in Minneapolis.