Celebrating Thomas E. Kennedy

by Thomas E. Kennedy, Walter Cummins (Editor), Renee Ashley (Editor)

Tom Kennedy died peacefully in his sleep on May 26, 2021. He had been aware that this collection was under preparation and was very much looking forward to holding a copy, as much as he had the two volumes of his final novel. Although this book was not planned as a memorial, to our distress, it now will fill that role. But it serves as just one of many tributes to Tom, along with Facebook postings, email exchanges, friends’ conversations, and private thoughts.

Tom touched so many people, and a number have offered their memories in these pages. But, as important as he is to us, his own memories of those he knew thoughout his years have sustained him. Although he called My Life with Women; or, The Consolations of Jazz a novel, it can be considered a life story in disguise. As he explains, “Some of this really happened, as memory serves me.” Tom’s memory served him well.

In “Dear Prudence,” jointly written with Line-Maria Lång, Tom concludes, “Before this moment, I have never realized something in all my seventy-four From the beginning, nothing at all has lasted; memory is all we have. Memory is all, and all is memory.”

It is our great fortune to have our memories of Tom.

365 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 7, 2022

About the author

Thomas E. Kennedy is an author of novels, short stories, and essays. He has been a journalist for World Medical Journal and the Danish Medical Association and a translator and editor for Copenhagen's Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims and now teaches at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He lives in Copenhagen with his wife, a physician.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.