The Boys of My Youth

The acclaimed author reflects on romance and disillusionment in childhood, young adulthood, and her marriage through a series of autobiographical essays.

“Smart, funny, and moving. . . . A gifted and gutsy writer. . . . This is what a first collection of stories should be.” —The Boston Globe

Cousins, mothers, sisters, dolls, dogs, best friends: these are the fixed points in Jo Ann Beard’s universe, the constants that remain when the boys of her youth—and then men who replace them—are gone. This widely praised collection of autobiographical essays summons back, with astonishing grace and power, moments of childhood epiphany as well as the cataclysms of adult life: betrayal, divorce, death. It is a book that heralds the arrival of an immensely gifted and original writer.

“Extraordinary. . . . Beard is writing not with the romanticism of a girl looking up at the stars, but with the brilliant cold light of the stars looking down on us.” —Chicago Tribune

“A luminous, funny, heartbreaking book of essays about life and its defining moments.” —Harper’s Bazaar

“Utterly compelling . . . uncommonly beautiful. . . . Life in these pages is an astonishment.” —Newsweek

“Beard remembers (or imagines) her childhood self with an uncanny lucidity that startles.” —New York Times Book Review