I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl: A MemoirNow in paperback—“The triumph of Kelle Groom’s memoir lies in her plangent, poetic prose as she lays bare the onset of her alcoholism at age fifteen, the child she bore and gave up at nineteen, and her dead-end jobs, upset parents, blackouts, hookups, and, eventually, slow and steadfast embrace of a sober, creative life” (Elle). At the age of fifteen, Kelle Groom found that alcohol allowed her to connect with people and explore intimacy in ways she’d never been able to experience before. She began drinking before class, often blacked out at bars, and fell into destructive relationships. At nineteen, already an out-of-control alcoholic, she was pregnant. Accepting the heartbreaking fact that she was incapable of taking care of her son herself, she gave him up for adoption to her aunt and uncle. They named him Tommy and took him home with them to Massachusetts. When he was nine months old, the boy was diagnosed with leukemia—but Kelle’s parents, wanting the best for her, kept her mostly in the dark about his health. When Tommy died he was only fourteen months old. Having lost him irretrievably, Kelle went into an accelerating downward spiral of self-destruction. She emerged from this free fall only when her desire to stop drinking connected her with those who helped her to get sober. In stirring, hypnotic prose, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl explores the most painful aspects of Kelle’s addiction and loss with unflinching honesty and bold determination. Urgent and vital, exquisite and raw, her story is as much about maternal love as it is about survival, as much about acceptance as it is about forgiveness. Kelle’s longing for her son remains twenty-five years after his death. It is an ache intensified, as she lost him twice—first to adoption and then to cancer. In this inspiring portrait of redemption, Kelle charts the journey that led her to accept her addiction and grief and to learn how to live in the world. Through her family’s history and the story of her son’s cancer, Kelle traces with clarity and breathtaking grace the forces that shape a life, a death, and a literary voice. |
Contents
Evidence of Things Unseen | 1 |
Godzilla | 17 |
Seven Works of Mercy | 35 |
Night Train | 53 |
El Paso | 73 |
Sugar Mountain | 87 |
Mirror | 107 |
The Shoe Museum | 123 |
Hour of Death | 155 |
Aortic | 163 |
Shelter | 168 |
Australia | 176 |
Informant | 180 |
Guanyin | 185 |
Radiolarians | 213 |
The Floating Island | 225 |
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Common terms and phrases
afraid alcohol Antabuse arms aunt and uncle baby beach Bill’s body bottle breath Brockton can’t cancer chair child couldn’t dark died door doughnut drink drive drunk El Paso eyes face feel girl glass Go Ask Alice Groom hair hand he’d he’s hold hospital inside Kelle Kelle’s kiss laughing leukemia live looks Margot Livesey Mark and Julia Mark’s meeting memoir Mike mother mouth Nana Smith never nurse Orlando parents Plymouth Beach Plymouth County quiet remember says seems she’d She’s shoe sleep smiling sober someone son’s stand stop street Sugar Mountain Superfund talk tapes tell There’s they’re things thought tiny told Tommy Tommy’s touch trying turn walk wasn’t we’re window Winter Park woman Wore the Ocean writing yellow