Jennie's Boy
A Misfit Childhood on an Island of Eccentrics
by Wayne Johnston
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Pub Date Feb 07 2023 | Archive Date Jan 09 2023
Steerforth Press | Steerforth
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Description
The sad, tender, and extremely funny memoir of a boyhood few thought he would survive, including the unforgettable mother and hilarious grandmother who raised him
A book to be relished by lovers of such works as The Glass Castle, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, and Angela's Ashes
Everything readers love about consummate storyteller and beloved bestselling novelist Wayne Johnston's work is on full display in Jennie’s Boy: incredible characters, brilliant language, and a deep sense of place.
Wayne Johnston’s family — his mother, father, and three brothers — were always on the move. The year he turned eight, the most memorable year of an unusual childhood, they found themselves occupying a wreck of a house in the community his mother Jennie was from: Goulds, Newfoundland was not so much a place as a scattering of homes along an unpaved road.
Everyone knew him as “Jennie’s boy,” and his tiny, ferocious mother felt judged for Wayne’s sickly, skinny condition — he had to spend much of his time in a bed on wheels that was moved from room to room. While his brothers went off to school, Wayne passed his days with his witty, eccentric maternal grandmother, Lucy, whose son Leonard had died at the age of seven and whose photo stood alongside a statue of the Blessed Virgin.
Jennie's Boy recalls a boyhood full of pain, laughter, tenderness, and the kind of wit for which Newfoundlanders are known. By that wit, and by their love for each other — so often expressed in the most unloving ways — he, and they, survived.
Advance Praise
"While the book’s most apt comparison is likely Frank McCourt’s story of his Irish childhood in Limerick, “Angela’s Ashes,” “Jennie’s Boy” is, if anything, even more powerful: a compressed, restrained account of a life lived on the edge, not only in poverty, but at the cusp of mortality. A simple fishing trip, for example, becomes a near-tragic event, a life-shaping incident depicted with an emotional directness. Never overblown or sentimental, “Jennie’s Boy” is as vivid as one’s own memories, a glimpse into a past of pain and wonder, of loss and joy."
--Toronto Star
"All I have ever done," Wayne Johnston writes in Jennie's Boy, his account of growing up dirt-poor in Newfoundland, "is repeat what I was told." Be grateful for that: the result is a story so vibrant and detailed you don't read it so much as you race along and relive it, blow by staggering blow. The man is incapable of writing a dull sentence. The Johnstons of Newfoundland are poorer than Steinbeck's Joads, funnier than the McCourts of Angela's Ashes, and every bit as worthy as material. Which makes sense: there was no place on earth quite like bottomed-out Newfoundland, and there is no better book about it than this one. A brilliant and unforgettable story told by one of the masters of Canadian literature.
--Ian Brown
“I have been a Wayne Johnston fan since my teens. His books are the ones that showed me that my own backyard was worth writing about. In Jennie’s Boy, a glorious tale of bedmobiles and jug baths drawn from his own life, he showed me what was behind closed doors just up the road from me. Like the best Newfoundland storytellers do, he made me laugh and then pause to think of how we can find love and joy in a most untraditional childhood.”
--Alan Doyle
“Wayne Johnston’s childhood in Newfoundland was full of laughter, pain and poverty. And then laughter again. His memoir, Jennie’s Boy, is an uplifting account of a childhood not just survived—he came close to death too many times to count—but triumphed over. Thank god he lived to tell the tale.”
--Rick Mercer
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781586423629 |
| PRICE | $19.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 320 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Irene G, Reviewer
I loved this book! It's set in Newfoundland, a place I yearn to visit one day. My husband's mother was born there and I've been fascinated with it for ages. It was part of Britain until 1945, when it joined Canada but in reality it is virtually a country unto itself, with its own distintive culture, dialect, music, and food. I was curious to read a memoir of a childhood spent there. I didn't realize, when I started the book, that the author had serious health issues in his youth that are as much, if not more, a part of his story than his location -- though the two are inextricably linked due to the isolation of coastal communities and the poverty of most of the inhabitants.
This is, at its heart, a story about family. About a family beset with adversity, with enough love to carry them through. We know it has a happy ending because the author survives his childhood to write about it. Highly recommended
Cindy A, Reviewer
(3.5 stars) This is a great introduction for me, to author Wayne Johnston! It's his story of growing up in Newfoundland. He grew up with a strange medical condition, & in a poor family that 'relocated' a lot & maybe had some 'unique' family dynamics....but always seemed to stick together? He does a great job of telling his story in a frank & honest manner, & also gets numerous audible chuckles along the way! I will look up more of his writing....it was real good! A very interesting life!
I received an e-ARC of the book from Steerforth Press via NetGalley & return offer this, my own fair/honest review.
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