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They left us everything : a memoir

Johnson, Plum (Author).

After the death of the author's senile father, and cantankerous ninety-three-year-old mother, she and her three younger brothers must empty and sell the beloved family home. Twenty-three rooms full of history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. The author remembers her loving but difficult parents who could not have been more different: the British father, a handsome, disciplined patriarch who nonetheless 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 1950s and 60s. 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.

Kit  - 2014
306.874 Joh
16 copies / 0 on hold

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Other Formats

  • ISBN: 0143189050
  • ISBN: 9780143189053
  • Physical Description 274 pages
  • Publisher Toronto : Penguin Canada Books, 2014.

Content descriptions

General Note:
Winner of the 2015 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction
This book club kit has 16 copies
GMD: kit.
Immediate Source of Acquisition Note:
LSC 22.00

Additional Information

Syndetic Solutions - Summary for ISBN Number 0143189050
They Left Us Everything
They Left Us Everything
by Johnson, Plum
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Summary

They Left Us Everything


Winner of the 2015 RBC Taylor Prize Winner of the 2016 Forest of Reading® Evergreen Award(tm) 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 nonetheless 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 1950s and 60s. 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.