I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl:
A Memoir
I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl
available in paperback April 3, 2012.
SWEDEN (available May 2012)
Norstedts
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Directed by Alicia Conway
Featuring Andrea Wright and Nora Lee Young
Editing by Ben Rock
Produced by Visible Man Productions
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“I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl took my breath, and then my heart, away. That Kelle Groom survived to tell this story of addiction and her descent into hell is a miracle—but so is the deep wide lyrical profundity of the writing—writing as thrilling and moving as the story is redemptive and light-giving. The effect this book had on me is no different from the one I had when I found my first poem, while leafing through the Book of Knowledge in my childhood home. It was by Wordsworth and my heart stopped as I realized without the words to say: that the smallest moments can hold such meaning, can define without definition, can describe without description what it means to be alive. I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl reminded me of what literature can do.”
— Beverly Donofrio, author of Riding in Cars With Boys
“In this glittering fragmented memoir Kelle Groom reveals in brilliant detail how her life changed with the birth of her son, Tom, and how, in the years that followed, he remained, irrevocably, at the centre of everything. These beautiful pages offer a privileged glimpse of a world of secret emotions and thoughts. The reader too emerges transformed.”
— Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture and The House on Fortune Street
"In language as precise and sparkling as the tip of a razor against your skin, Kelle Groom offers an unflinching portrait of a mother yearning for the infant son she gave up for adoption and then lost to leukemia. As honest and moving a memoir as I've ever read."
— Will Allison, author of Long Drive Home
“The triumph of Kelle Groom’s memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, lies in her plangent, poetic prose as she lays bare the onset of her alcoholism at age 15, the child she bore and gave up at 19, and her dead-end jobs, upset parents, blackouts, hookups, and, eventually, slow and steadfast embrace of a sober, creative life.”
— Lisa Shea, Elle
“Her [Groom's] writing is a wonderfully compelling mix of simple and lyrical"
— Publishers Weekly
"A visceral, darkly lyrical narrative"
— Kirkus Reviews |