“As a writer, Wearing is all luscious texture and running narrative.” — The Globe and Mail
Moments of Glad Grace is a moving and witty memoir of aging, familial love, and the hunt for roots and belonging. The story begins as a trip from Canada to Ireland in search of genealogical data and documents. Being 80 and in the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease, Joe invites his daughter Alison to come along as his research assistant, which might have worked very well had she any interest — any at all — in genealogy.
Very quickly, the father-daughter pilgrimage becomes more comical than fruitful, more of a bittersweet adventure than a studious mission. And rather than rigorous genealogy, their explorations move into the realm of family and forgiveness, the primal search for identity and belonging, and questions about responsibility to our ancestors and the extent to which we are shaped by the people who came before us.
Though continually bursting with humor, Moments of Glad Grace ultimately becomes a song of appreciation for the precious and limited time we have with our parents, the small moments we share, and the gifts of transcendence we might find there.
Alison Wearing is the bestselling author of Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter, an Indigo Top 50 pick shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Prize and longlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize, and Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey. She teaches, performs solo multimedia plays, and leads writing workshops internationally.
“Moments of Glad Grace is an endearing delight.” — Shelf Awareness
“A richly layered journey, charmingly told.” — Plum Johnson, author of They Left Us Everything
“Dancing between hilarity and the poignancy of a last sojourn with her father, Alison Wearing once again reveals herself as a sharp and tender observer of this mortal coil we call life. Moments of Glad Grace is a journey you won't want to miss.” — Merilyn Simonds, author of Refuge
“It was a beautifully written, bittersweet account of a father/daughter trip, full of optimism and resignation — I really liked it and will recommend it.” — Steacy Johnson, Ottawa Public Library
“I adored this memoir because I could identify with it so much … Thank you, Alison Wearing, for sharing your day-by-day adventure in Ireland.” — Gwen Ellington, Friends of Nancy Guinn Library, Conyers GA