In the chemistry lab and on the field, John Gilboy is “a no-quit kind of guy”
Hard Hitter
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Joining the Club
Ex-refugees, Somali boys have big impact on elite soccer team
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Business-Ready
Entrepreneurial Alliance has students flocking to the drawing board
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A Hand Up
Alumni consultants organize to give small businesses a boost
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Remembering Hugh Gourley
It was our summer to visit colleges, and as we walked around the beautiful Colby campus we arrived at the museum. Standing at the door was Hugh Gourley. He was wearing his characteristic impeccably pressed kakis and a colorful tailored shirt. A slight, very proper man, Hugh appeared large as he stood at the door of his museum.
This was Hugh’s kingdom, a place he built with dedication, determination, and creativity. Slowly he guided us through the galleries. Hugh’s love of art was not communicated by lengthy monologues, but by a gentle silence interrupted by morsels of profound information. In his quiet way he told us the history of the museum and the aesthetic reasons why he had placed one work next to the other. Art here did not stand in isolation but in a dialogue that spanned the centuries and created a conversation between different aesthetic movements.
By the end of the tour, Bree had decided that this was the place she wanted to go to college.
Sidebar: An Enduring LegacyAs he did for so many students, Hugh provided Bree with a very special and profound education, not only in art, but in the ways museums function, exhibitions are formed, collections are created, and collaborations are developed with other museums. Students found sanctuary and stimulation at the museum and Hugh provided a place where they could go, usually unannounced but always welcomed. As he did with us on our first tour of the museum, Hugh offered students the opportunity to see and experience differently. The museum truly was a magical place.
We both watched Hugh as he realized his dreams and turned the museum into the jewel of Colby College and one of the great American cultural institutions. When Hugh first became director of the Colby Museum it was just a small college museum without a particular direction or curatorial vision. He soon began growing the collection in a systematic and careful way. Hugh had ambitious plans, and he lived to see them realized.
The list of Hugh’s accomplishments is long and impressive. When he had the opportunity to build the Lunder Wing, Hugh searched for the best architect for the project. He wanted to work with someone who could design a building that would blend into the campus, adapt the vernacular architecture of Maine, but most importantly be sensitive to the art it housed. Fred Fischer, Paula D.F.A. ’98 and Peter Lunder ’56, D.F.A. ’98, and Hugh produced that building.
The same was absolutely true of the Paul J. Schupf Wing for the Works of Alex Katz. Hugh and Alex worked in collaboration with Max Gordon and created a space that not only responded to Alex’s work, but provided the perfect showcase.
In addition to building an exciting and appropriate physical space for the museum, Hugh remained focused on the art it housed. He identified a need for contemporary art in the collection and, with a strong and supportive board, he aggressively searched for and added not only sole, extraordinary works of art, but entire archives such as the Terry Winters print archive, a magnificent tool for research. In an unusual move for a college museum, Hugh also identified the importance of acquiring public art. Hugh commissioned two bold and controversial pieces. The Richard Serra piece “4-5-6” is a perfect prelude to the museum. A site-specific piece that stands at the entrance, it alerts the visitor to the depth and range of the collection within the museum walls.
In our opinion, one of Hugh’s boldest accomplishments during his tenure was the commissioning of Sol Lewitt’s Seven Walls. This was a brave move that created a heated but healthy debate about the role of public art. Now, Seven Walls stands as a symbol of a college that is open to dialogue, has an open mind, and encourages creative and forward thinking.
Hugh’s entire professional career was the Colby museum. When he retired to New York City he spent his days visiting museums and galleries. His love for Colby and art was always informing his life. When visiting a show he would so often say, “This would be great piece for the collection.” The “collection” he was referring to was, of course, Colby’s.
In New York Hugh became a veritable encyclopedia of ongoing exhibitions and art happenings. He experienced the art community in New York much as his adoring students had experienced the art at Colby—with passion and awe. His favorite place of discovery was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He visited almost daily, taking in one wing at a time. He slowly, methodically, and with an eager eye studied the collection. His elegant figure was seen at openings and lectures.
Hugh would often call and ask, “Have you seen the new Fred Wilson show (or whoever was recently up and opened)? Would you care to join me?” And off we would go on a wonderful afternoon adventure with Hugh. It was always a delight to experience a new show through Hugh’s unique, enthusiastic, and informed viewpoint. Hugh’s love of art truly knew no limits.
When his health began to fail, he retired to what he knew best: the comfort of Maine, his museum, and his very many friends. He lived surrounded by his art books and visitors. We talked to Hugh often. He was always eager to hear of New York goings on, and we were always curious to hear what he was learning through books and friends and to share his thoughtfulness. The many of us who had the luck to be his friend also had the privilege to engage in his conversation and gain his gentle, thoughtful, and informed advice.
We like to think of Hugh as a strong tree that grows in the Maine forest, like one would find in an Alex Katz landscape. Under his shade grew many friendships and mentorships and a very particular and vital museum. He shall be remembered as such.
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Old Glories
Catherine Courtenaye ’79, Modernism gallery, San Francisco (Sept. 13-Oct. 27, 2012)
Courtenaye’s work is inspired by and incorporates handwritten artifacts of the 19th century. Her oil paintings recontextualize the handwriting in documents she has examined in museums, libraries, and in her own collection.
I am especially interested in ferreting out instances of deviation from Victorian writing standards,” Courtenaye wrote in an introduction to the San Francisco show. “These tiny gestures express an improvisatory spirit at odds with strict rules of stylistic conformity. Here one can see the human impulse to let the mind stray, with pen in hand. … In my work, I want to remember that, despite the radical social transformations that technology has brought, those ancestors are not so different from us.”
There is more about Courtenaye’s work at catherinecourtenaye.com
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A History of Putting a Spin on Vigilante Justice
Vigilantes and Lynch Mobs: Narratives of a Community and a NationLisa Arellano (American studies and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies)
Temple University Press (2012)
Associate Professor Lisa Arellano’s research for what would become Vigilantes and Lynch Mobs took her to archives in Louisiana, Idaho, Montana, and California. And though the specific incidents in the accounts and commentary she studied included ostensibly unique events—measured vigilante justice of the Wild West and brutal racial lynch mobs of the Deep South—Arellano found herself reading the same narratives over and over. The stories, she writes, “all contained similar and recurring formulations such that they were virtually interchangeable.”
How could that be? Her book, which is more historiography than history, shows that the propagation and ritualization of such violence relied upon a selective reality that emphasized barbaric (and always unprecedented) crime, inept officialdom, and a valorous and even heroic response.
Arellano examined the stories attached to vigilante movements in the 19th-century West, and that alone is a fascinating snapshot into that period of our history. There was something distinctly American in this romanticized do-it-yourself brand of justice and commentators of the time. In fact, in one noted study of the time, Arellano shows, the author revised his accounts of “popular tribunals” before publication to ensure that only the most idealized version emerged.
Omitted was the sometimes racially motivated selection of targets by vigilantes (in California Chinese laborers were a convenient “other”). While it was acknowledged that there were rogue elements, the principled vigilantes, wrote self-published historian Hubert Howe Bancroft, were the embodiment of democracy, “watching the welfare of the commonwealth, using force only when all other means fail, using its power with moderation, tempering justice with mercy, and gladly relinquishing its distasteful duties the moment it can do so with safety.”
The reality was sometimes very different, as some vigilantes in the West included torture and even taking of human trophies in their dispensation of justice, Arellano writes. The skin of one “ferocious bandit” hung by vigilantes in 1891 was tanned and made into various items, including a medical bag and a pair of lady’s shoes (displayed at a local bank in Wyoming).
This was justified by the alleged heinousness of the criminals, a rationalization that extended to the narratives that later accompanied southern lynchings, Arellano writes. The “uncontrolled criminal conditions” that made vigilantism necessary took the form of the alleged sexual assaults on white women by black men. Lawlessness was assigned a racial identity, and in the Jim Crow South it was the chivalric duty of white men to defend their women against such crimes (mostly unsubstantiated) in the most brutal ways possible.
Arellano explores the work of Ida B. Wells, an anti-lynching activist whose pamphlets began to erode the southern lynching myth in the 1880s and 1890s. Wells not only described the horrific reality of southern lynching but also helped dismantle the narrative that made it defensible and disguised its role in helping one race control another.
It’s strong and discomfiting stuff, and Arellano notes that when she teaches this subject her students find it hard to imagine how brutal vigilantism could be explained as heroic or part of an American ideal. But it was and still is, and many of the elements of early vigilante narratives survive today. “We need to be fully able to name and understand the construction of this past,” Arellano writes, “in order to engage with its ‘historically’ continuing presence.”
Arellano’s goal in this book, she wrote, “is to muddy seemingly clear historical waters.”
She’s done that and, in the process, it becomes apparent that this particular form of violence is tied to a carefully constructed and perpetuated narrative intended to obscure our view of our past and ourselves.
Believe it at your own risk.
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Gardner Colby's Remarkable Mom
If 19th century philanthropist Gardner Colby is the namesake and savior of Colby College, what of Sarah Davison Colby, the woman who raised him along the Kennebec River and saw her son go from modest beginnings to become a successful Boston industrialist?
That Gardner Colby gave the College $50,000 to rescue it from financial crisis in 1864 is remarkable. His mother’s story, fictionalized by her descendant Cynthia Lang, is in some ways more remarkable still, as the single-mother persevered through financial reversals and eventually flourished.Sarah Carlisle’s River and Other StoriesCynthia LangMill City Press (2012)
Lang based her story on a 40-page letter Sarah Davison Colby wrote (under the name Sarah Carlisle) to a nephew in 1840, reassuring him during hard times. “Having known what such adversity is, I can appreciate the distress you are in.”
And well she did. Lang’s carefully rendered account, including verbatim quotes from a transcription of the letter, takes us back to the Kennebec River towns of the dawn of the 19th century, when shipbuilding was a burgeoning industry. Davison Colby’s husband (in a marriage that her parents wouldn’t bless) and Gardner’s father, Josiah Colby, was an entrepreneur shipbuilder in Bowdoinham, below Augusta, who rode the wave of booming American trade. Colby built ships, opened a chandlery business, and ordered fine furniture from abroad. Life was good, and then came the Embargo Act of 1807, prohibiting trade with Britain, and the War of 1812, which disrupted shipping even more. The highly leveraged shipbuilding industry ran aground. Josiah Colby never recovered.“Crushed with disappointments, numb from the shock of his losses, blurred from drink, and unfit for work, my husband could not enjoy, let alone protect, what remained to him—his wife and children,” Sarah laments in Lang’s story.
The young mother took over, going to work as a seamstress and later moving to Waterville. She scrimped and saved while her husband did odd work to keep himself in rum. “Over Christmas I attended an illumination at the college, where a bright candle shone in every window. I met the head, a Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin, and his wife, a very pleasant, open woman.”
Chaplin offered counsel, and it was decided that Sarah would leave Waterville alone for Boston. She did, became a dressmaker, and was reunited with her children. Her son, Gardner, opened a store, and in his first year made $3,000 profit. The rest is history, and a lovely story that gives readers a sense of the people who lived and worked around then Waterville College and new respect and admiration for those who have gone before. More about Sarah Carlisle’s River at cynthialang.com
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D-I Vet MacDonald Takes Over Men's Hockey
An NCAA Division I veteran who has won national championships as a coach and player takes over the Colby’s men’s ice hockey program this year.
Blaise MacDonald, former head coach at Niagara University and University of Massachusetts at Lowell, takes over the team from longtime head coach Jim Tortorella, who left to become assistant coach at the University of New Hampshire, and Stan Moore, who stepped in as interim coach for the 2011-12 season.
MacDonald is the 18th head coach since men’s hockey was started at Colby in 1922-23. MacDonald returns to Division III hockey for the first time since the first two years at Niagara. “As long as you have standards of excellence, it doesn’t really matter what level of play you are at,” MacDonald said. “You can be a player who exceeds expectations or be a high performer for the team as long as you have standards of excellence.”
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A School for Leaders
Colby College is the first NCAA Division III school to conduct a leadership academy for athletes through the Janssen Sports Leadership Center.
The Colby Leadership Academy develops and supports Colby student-athletes and coaches in their effort to become leaders in athletics, academics, and life, said Harold Alfond Director of Athletics Marcella Zalot.
Said Zalot, “I know the program will provide the support and skills our students need to effectively lead themselves, their teams, and also be leaders on campus.”
Janssen also helped develop academies at University of Arkansas, Colgate University, University of North Carolina, and Yale University, among others.
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Ravens Assistant GM DeCosta Prepares for Future Role
Eric DeCosta is ready. Prior to the 2012 season Eric DeCosta ’93 was in demand as a possible general manager for several National Football League teams, according to Sports Illustrated. He had spent 15 years with the Baltimore Ravens, but his path to the GM post with that team appeared blocked by long-time GM Ozzie Newsome.
Before a possible departure, DeCosta was promoted to assistant general manager. So how will the promotion increase the skill set of DeCosta, 41, a former linebacker at Colby?“The biggest thing is I have the opportunity to learn some of the big-picture things,” he said during training camp in August. “It gives me a chance to see things from a different perspective. I am excited to stay, hopefully to be the GM at Baltimore at some point in the future.”“The Baltimore Ravens’ brand has grown to be one of the strongest brands in the NFL,” he added. “We have a tremendous stadium. We have fabulous training facilities. We have a great relationship with [sponsor] Under Armour and a strong roster of players. We have made the playoffs five of the last six years. I think the future is bright.”
DeCosta joined the Ravens in 1996, the team’s first year. He guided the college scouting department for six years and was promoted to director of player personnel in 2009, overseeing college and pro scouting.“Being able to delegate is one [skill] I learned from Ozzie,” DeCosta said. “He steps back and lets people like myself do our jobs.”
During his tenure as scouting director, the Ravens drafted future All-Pros Terrell Suggs, Le’Ron McClain, and Haloti Ngata and quarterback Joe Flacco, who led the Ravens to within a play of the Super Bowl in 2011 (losing to the Patriots in the AFC title contest).
DeCosta said his promotion means he is more involved in salary cap issues and all facets of player personnel. He also said he needs to improve his knowledge of league-wide issues and some of the challenges facing the NFL, such as player safety and concussions.“Safety is paramount. The clubs understand that. Our players are the future of the game, and we want them to remain safe. ... Without the players the league does not exist,” he said.
Another issue facing the NFL is the health and future of retired players, many of whom are left nearly crippled after playing the violent sport.“The health of retired players is something the league has to spend more time looking at,” he said. “We have to make sure our retired players lead a healthy life after football.”
DeCosta said he is excited about his future with the Ravens but did not give a possible timeline for a GM move. “Baltimore has really become a home for my family. I can’t imagine leaving for another opportunity. It is the right fit,” he said.
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Scouting in the NFL
Mark Azevedo ’04 had finished his career as a tight end at Colby, but with his playing days behind him, he spent spring 2004 with an eye on his football future.“Coach [Ed Mestieri] gave me some work with coordinating possible recruits,” Azevedo said. “I got my feet wet a little bit.”
That led to a football position at Springfield College, where he recruited in several states. After that season he joined the Baltimore Ravens, where he is area scout for the Southeast.
Azevedo has evaluated free agents and scouted college teams in preparation for the NFL draft.“I enjoy the people I work with and the people I meet,” said Azevedo. “The biggest challenge is being away from home. It gets long at the end of three weeks of being on the road.”
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Poems that Explore "A World of Haunting Absences"
Given AwayJennifer Barber ’78Kore Press
The lyric sequence comprising Jennifer Barber’s Given Away begins in August and ends in August, recording the speaker’s interactions—one almost wants to say “intercessions”—with a world of haunting absences where “quiet reigns” and “heat gathers in the crown / of an oak” so the speaker can ‘sow the light of reckoning.’”
One might think of Given Away as a travelogue except that, even while traveling in the course of the year—to Ireland and to a variety of cities in Spain—the speaker turns real landscapes into a topography of the interior where she seems oddly content to wait “for the rain / to start and stop”… and “for emptiness to fill / the fireplace” in a cottage on Achill Island.
The conflict underpinning this section of “Achill Island Fears” is the speaker’s “reckoning” with a companion who has been gone for three hours when the speaker just “wanted an hour alone.” But even this brief narrative retelling diminishes the poem’s grace—its almost saintly acquiescence and stillness—for Given Away is not interested in stories or in the characters who open their mouths to tell them. To borrow a phrase from Robert Hass on Whitman’s first truly imagistic poems, the poems of Given Away“simply present and by presenting [assert] the adequacy and completeness of our experience of the physical world.”
Only here, in Jennifer Barber’s hands, the goal is not so much to represent the real physical world verbally as to use representative imagery to make a series of portraits of the more internal experience of being a “revved-up soul” … “in the garden / on the shred of a stalk.” That is, the startling images Barber conjures out of the landscape of a year are the real story of Given Away.
Even the book’s wranglings with thoughts of death and mysterious romantic encounters far from America do not overcome the overarching drama of the speaker’s willingness to relinquish or give over—to give away—whatever the self or soul is in order to understand “the angels on the lid / of the cookie tin” more fully.
The poems of Given Away are a series of platforms upon which Barber prayerfully retorts to everything—God, the universe—because it is the way of this poet to “study” things and therein to “steady” them.
In this hyperactive, multiphonic age of bits and bits on top of bytes (in which the now archaic-seeming idea of an “information overload” can seem more and more like information sickness), such contemplative gestures feel essential.
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Recent Releases
Alexander’s Veterans and the Early Wars of the Successors Joseph Roisman (classics)University of Texas Press (2012)
Alexander the Great is known as one of the most formidable military commanders of all time. But what of the vaunted Greek soldiers who fought for him, conquering Persia, invading India, and creating a vast empire?
Scholars have studied Alexander and his ilk, the heavy hitters of ancient Greece. In this groundbreaking book, Roisman looks at the experience of the Macedonian veterans who made Alexander great. How did they behave off the battlefield? What was their relationship with commanders? What effect did they have on the outcome as successors divided up Alexander’s spoils after his death in 323 B.C.?
Roisman isn’t the first to consider this tumultuous and important period in history, but he is one of the first scholars to look at it through the lens of the rank-and-file warriors who made it all possible. In Good Time: The Piano Jazz of Marian McPartlandJames “Huey” Coleman ’70(2011)
Since its release last year, this documentary about jazz legend Marian McPartland has continued to garner acclaim at both jazz and film festivals, and from both the music and general press. Longtime filmmaker Huey (Coleman’s professional nom du cinéma) has produced an intimate and comprehensive portrait of McPartland, whose illustrious jazz career begged for this sort of treatment. “A marvelous documentation of a true artist,” said NPR’s Susan Stamberg. (More at filmsbyhuey.com) World of Wonders: the Lyrics and Music of Bruce Cockburn James Heald ’74Amazon (2012)
Heald has written an appreciation of the lyrics and music of iconic guitarist Bruce Cockburn, the first comprehensive look at the works of the Canadian singer-songwriter from the 1960s to the present.
While Cockburn hasn’t achieved megastar status in the United States, he is revered in Canada, and for good reason, Heald writes. Cockburn is a visionary artist: an engaging and probing songwriter, a spiritual seeker, a truth teller, and an extraordinary guitarist. Heald, a guitarist and singer-songwriter himself, doesn’t want us to miss a beat.
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Silver Tsunami
Colby research project examines challenges facing China’s aging population
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Three Sports? For Standout Athlete Kate Pistel Play is Nonstop
Kate Pistel ’13 played three sports in high school, so playing varsity soccer, squash, and lacrosse throughout her time at Colby is no big deal to her. But not everyone sees it that way.
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Discovering Miss Runnals
Samantha Eddy ’13 learns that a special Colby woman paved the way.
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Back On His Feet
Prosthetic device allows injured Marine Corps Capt. Erik Quist to walk, run, sprint—and maybe lead another day
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To the Colby Community, a Marine Says Thank You
Related Stories
- The Road from Marja
- Back On His Feet
The whole of my Marine Corps career involves positions of mentorship if not outright instruction. Rewarding as the teaching aspect of leadership is, it can come with a side effect; you can find yourself seeking opportunities to impart knowledge, which may narrow your vision. Such was the case during my last meeting with Colby Managing Editor Gerry Boyle ’78.
While interviewing me on camera at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio in December, Mr. Boyle asked, “Is there anything you would like to tell the Colby community?” Immediately my mind went to the current student body and my inner instructor came out. As the cameraman packed his gear, that sinking feeling of a forgotten commitment began to develop. I heard my father’s voice, “Perhaps you’d consider taking a moment to reflect and thank those who have selflessly supported you.” Shame on me; please allow me to adjust course.
Mr. Joe Boulos ’68. Mr. Boulos was the first Colby alumnus to reach out to me, within days of my injury. Marines are always inspired by those who went before them, and I can only be humbled by his experiences as a Marine aviator in Vietnam. Early on he provided both an “Emblem Injection” (Marine-speak for a rush of pride despite the trials of Marine life; references the Marine Corps emblem) and a Mayflower Hill injection. He religiously checks in on and provides support to me and my wife, Liz Czernicki Quist ’98. Semper Fidelis, Mr. Boulos.
Professor Jim Meehan was the first person I thought of to provide a non-military recommendation when I was applying to the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School. His standards were high and he was appropriately unforgiving to those who did not meet them. There was no Colby professor whose work ethic paralleled the Marine Corps ethos more, and I knew if he felt I was unprepared for the challenge, he would rightfully refuse to write the recommendation. He wrote that recommendation and was bedside in the military hospital at Bethesda, on multiple occasions, nine years later.
Annie ’98 and Craig ’97 Lundsten. Annie and Craig were first on the scene at the hospital bearing magazines, food, and support for Liz in particular. They have always been close friends, and even in the midst of a household move to New England, they were there for us.
Nancy Nasse was my recovery care coordinator at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. She spent more than her fair share of time bedside offering guidance and humor. She is married to Dave Nasse ’99, a Marine logistician. It cannot be easy providing care, assistance, and levity to injured Marines while your own husband is serving in Afghanistan.
Adam Davis ’99 and Heather Hilton ’99. Both were frequently seen bedside as my recovery progressed; all visits came complete with comfort food. Heather was preparing for a deployment to Iraq at the time. Adam was in the midst of a total home renovation. Thank you guys.
Tony Pasquariello ’99. I read his letter in the fall 2012 issue of Colby. Thank you, Tony, for adding awareness of those classmates serving, and as you stated, thank you for your service, John Ginn ’97 and Ben Lester ’99.
John Maddox ’99. I ran into John Maddox, a Naval lieutenant and surgeon, at Bethesda just days into my stay there. I remembered John’s involvement with the woodsmen’s team, but that was about it. It didn’t matter; he was in my hospital room multiple times to see how I was doing.
Whit Bond ’63 and Marian Leerburger ’84 both heard of my injury through the grapevine. They reached out immediately, offering support and help at any point I needed it. Brent and Jill Stasz Harris, both ’86, met Liz at a lecture Professor Meehan gave in Washington, D.C. They have kept in touch with us, offering any needed support.
President William “Bro” Adams took time to visit Liz and me early on after surgery. He offered multiple times to help in any way possible. Liz and I could not be more thankful.
To the family of Elizabeth Hanson ’02, the CIA agent who died in Afghanistan. I knew of, but little about, your daughter while at Colby. I can only thank you for creating the hero we have come to know in Elizabeth. She, among others, remains an inspiration and driving force behind recovery and the desire to get back into the fight. God Bless.
To my family. To not consider all of you part of the Colby community would be criminal. I do not know how you remained bedside and sane, and I will hold eternal guilt for putting you through all of it. I am truly lucky to have such a family; one that finds and forever holds the additional strength from such adversity.
I know I have missed some of the Colby community, but to the whole, thank you.
Marines love the camaraderie and “smallness” of the Corps. It builds lifelong relationships and a huge supporting community. I have experienced nothing like it—with the exception of that of the Colby students, staff, and alumni. I should have said thank you on camera. I hope this communicates my gratitude as well, if not better.Capt. Erik Quist ’99, U.S.M.C.Occoquan, Virginia
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Lifesaving Lessons: Notes from an Accidental Mother
The tag line for Greenlaw’s latest? “Famed swordfish boat captain Linda Greenlaw faces her greatest battle with nature—a newly adopted teenage daughter.”
Fans of the bestselling writer launched by the book and movie The Perfect Storm know Greenlaw as one tough customer. She can wrestle an 800-pound swordfish, manage a crew of obstreperous fishermen, and navigate the roughest reaches of the icy North Atlantic. But guardian of and companion to a troubled teenager? That’s a side of the Maine fishing captain that Greenlaw’s legions of readers have not yet seen.
The memoir, years in the making, begins when 15-year-old Mariah arrives to live with her uncle on Isle au Haut, the rockbound Maine island that Greenlaw calls home. The uncle, new to the island, is thought to be a regular guy coming to the aid of his niece—until it’s revealed that he’s been abusing Mariah.
Islanders come to the teenager’s aid, and the independent Greenlaw is nominated as the best person in the community to provide a safe home—and to serve as a mentor.
Greenlaw, who has no children of her own, is thrust into a new and challenging role. This memoir recounts her journey with Mariah as the unlikely pair learn about each other and themselves. Advance blurbs describe the book as “remarkably candid and tenderly funny.” Judging by Greenlaw’s earlier works, it will also be unflinchingly honest.
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More Pages to Explore .....
