Claremont Boy: My New Hampshire Roots and the Gift of Memory

by Joseph D. Steinfield

In Claremont New Hampshire Roots and the Gift of Memory, Joseph Steinfield shares humorous, insightful, and often poignant recollections spanning more than half a century. The author recalls what it was like to grow up as part of a small Jewish community in a New Hampshire mill town, but the book includes much more. Readers will meet, and perhaps recognize from their own lives, grandparents and other relatives from Eastern Europe; influential public school teachers; some public figures whom he has known, Julia Child among them; and a host of other fascinating people from New England and beyond, including a Hebrew-speaking Muslim from the Northern Caucasus Republic of Adygeya and a P.L.O. leader from Jericho in the West Bank.

Originally written over several years for the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript of Peterborough, New Hampshire, these essays are united by the author's sense of irony and the unexpected. Steinfield's true stories will produce laughter, an occasional tear, and a reminder of the universality of life's experiences. Whether writing about a caring neighbor, an encounter with governmental bureaucracy, or the surprise endings that often occur in life, Steinfield has taken his storytelling skills and used them to recount a life well lived. Claremont My New Hampshire Roots and the Gift of Memory will resonate with readers everywhere.

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book because I grew up close to Claremont, NH in Windsor, VT and our family had friends there and shopped there. I especially remember the Queen Shop - what a name! My dear mother spent money we didn't have on a yellow London Fog raincoat for me so I could "look good" at college. I enjoyed the author's story but he was just enough older so that I didn't appreciate all he remembers.