On the Home Front

"Jack Clark's wondrous celebration of his working-class mother and her natural gifts as a storyteller has touched me deeply.

            "Hooray for Mary Jo Ryan Clark and her boy Jack." --Studs Terkel

"The book itself is a marvel of writerly restraint... Some are private moments--being 4 years old, getting shiny new shoes and remembering looking down at them as she toed circles in the sawdust on a butcher shop floor.

            "Other brush against history--news of Pearl Harbor, or the Dorchester, a World War II troop ship sunk off the coast of Greenland. It was famous for the four chaplains who gave up their life vests to other sailors, but Bill, who was dating Mary Jo's younger sister, wasn't one of the lucky survivors...

            "The books strength is that it doesn't stoop to Greatest Generation mythologizing. The Clarks are real people, and Mary Jo doesn't try to make them heroes."

--Chicago Sun-Times