When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir of Mexico, Maine by Monica Wood

When We Were the Kennedys is a beautiful memoir from Monica Wood, lovingly told.  This memoir opens with Wood’s father dying at 57 on his way to work at the Oxford paper mill, and eloquently shows how at age 9, her faith, family and friends helped her through her grief that first year after his death.  What I love most about this book is the way her memories cherish her childhood in Mexico, Maine, her family, friends, school…there is nothing bitter, despite her grief and her challenges.  There are not unkind or snarky retellings, there are no put downs.  Another author may have chosen different words, may have come away  angry; Wood speaks honestly and exquisitely, with the clarity of hindsight and the purity of a child.

Memoirs are popular these days, and I read many of them.  (Wild, Orange is the New Black, Bossypants, Fairy Tale Interrupted, Come to the Edge, Holy Ghost Girl, An Unquenchable Thirst, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, What Remains, Piano Lessons) I am often curious about their draw or “hook.”  What makes me or another reader want to read it?  Sometimes it is the author’s celebrity, sometimes I relate to a part of their upbringing, sometimes they’ve done something I want to do … and sometimes people just need to get the last word.  

So what is the draw to Monica Wood’s memoir of growing up in Mexico, Maine, of losing her father, of loving her family, of becoming a writer? It’s intimacy.  It makes me think of that time at a family funeral, when all the tears have been cried for a while, everyone is tired, and the stories begin.  This is a time when the joy of the life you are mourning is remembered, a precious, almost sacred time of celebrating a life.  It is this intimate moment that Wood shares in her memoir.  Despite the sadness, she shares what was good with gratitude, and lets us savor it with her.