Always There, Always Gone: A Daughter's Search for Truth

(Paperback)

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For fans of Natasha Trethewey and Maggie Smith, a mother-daughter story of multigenerational trauma, grief, discovery, and love, with the backdrops of an historic American tragedy and an iconic family business, written in lyrical, fragmented form.

In 1960, six years before Marty Ross-Dolen was born, her maternal grandparents were killed in an airline disaster involving the collision of two commercial jets over New York City. They were traveling from Columbus, Ohio, to seek placement for their familys iconic magazine, Highlights for Children, on the newsstands. Their daughterMartys motherwas fourteen years old at the time. This genre-bending memoir tells Martys story of being raised by a mother in protracted mourning.

The fragmented narrative explores Martys journey, from personal ways of coping as a child to the evolution of a mother-daughter relationship that matured over time. It is also about her longing to know her maternal grandmother, and through saved letters and photographs from her grandmothers life, she enters a fantastical relationship that serves to replace one that otherwise could never exist. Ultimately it is about the discovery of truth, in unearthing the story of her grandparents deaths and her mothers acute loss, in freeing her grandmothers image from the weight of a tragic death, and in Martys own delivery from darkness. Beyond that, it is about universal life choices, the ways human beings unknowingly determine their destinies, and the healing powers of truth and love.

Reviews

a touching memoir showcases some of the many complexities of loss a skillfully written work.Kirkus Reviews

A wise and thoughtful addition to our understanding of the long-term effects of trauma and its transmission from parent to child.NewPages.com
If ever there was a book written from and for love, with a hunger to know, to understand, and to heal, this is it.Abigail Thomas,New York Timesbest-selling author ofSafekeeping: Some True Stories from a LifeandA Three Dog Life: A Memoir

How do we conjure our dead, especially if they left this world before we were born Marty Ross-Dolen asks this question and, with this beautiful book, offers us a map. They are all around us, in each photograph, each saved letter, each thing they built. And what was built by her lost grandparents is iconic, part of the very fabric of America. WithAlways There, Always Gone, Ross-Dolen doesn't just conjure a tragic death. She conjures life.Nick Flynn, author ofAnother Bullshit Night in Suck CityandThis Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire

Using lyrical prose and startling imagery, Marty Ross-Dolen tells the story of a life marked forever by a past family tragedy. This deeply haunting and tremendously moving work of beauty offers a rare and genuine glimpse into the way a heart can both break and mend at once.Bret Lott, author ofJewel, an Oprah Book Club pick, andBefore We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writers Life

In a series of stunning vignettes, letters, and photographs, Marty Ross-Dolen traces a legacy of grief while confronting generational silence and loss with daring clarity and a poetic eye. The result is tender and wrenching, a compendium of longing. As with all the best writing, her work inspires and makes me eager to get on with my own. A dazzling memoir.Sonja Livingston, author ofGhostbread

WhenMarty Ross-Dolensgrandparents are killed in a terrible airplane accident years before she is born, the future is undone and then remade. The shattering will live on in Martys mother, reverberate through Marty, bend and twist inside the evidence of lives taken far too soon. With deepest love and capaciously poetic language,Always There, Always Goneoffers proof of the sustaining power of language, even in the face of catastrophic loss.Beth Kephart, National Book Award finalist and author ofMy Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera

A tragic accident, an inherited trauma, a fierce desire to protect. These are the threadsMartyRoss-Dolen weaves inAlways There, Always Gone. Searching for a grandmother she never knew, Ross-Dolen forges connections between three generationsgrandmother, mother, daughterin this wise and moving memoir. Innovative in its approach,Always There, Always Gonereminds us of the resilience of the human spirit and the ties that bind.Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist,The Bright Forever

ReadingAlways There, Always Goneis an immersive, mesmerizing experience. Its been a while since I read a story that so completely pulled me in. With striking, fresh metaphors and carefully crafted sentences, the writing tugged on every fiber of my mother-being. Days after closing this haunting memoir, I was in a daze, feeling very much like a time traveler returning to the present.MartyRoss-Dolens powerful words and this book will always be with me.Christine French Cully, Editor-in-Chief,Highlights for Children, and Author ofDear Highlights: What Adults Can Learn from 75 Years of Letters and Conversations with Kids

Author Bio

Marty Ross-Dolenis a graduate of Wellesley College and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is a retired child and adolescent psychiatrist. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Prior to her time at VCFA, she participated in graduate-level workshops at The Ohio State University. Her essays have appeared inNorth Dakota Quarterly,Redivider,Lilith,Willow Review, and the Brevity Blog, among others. Her essay entitled Diphtheria was named a notable essay inThe Best American Essays series.She teaches writing and lives in Columbus, Ohio.