AnTobar Books is pleased to announce the release of
Finding Home: An Irish American Story,
available online and at your local bookstore.
Finding Home: An Irish American Story
by Lois Farley Shuford
Who is he? A nineteenth-century photograph glimpsed at a family reunion sets the author on a quest covering two continents and three centuries. As she takes the reader through the Great Irish Famine to the American Civil War and the Westward Expansion, she discovers not only her ancestors’ stories but uncovers a mystery kept hidden for generations.
Finding Home: An Irish American Story traces one family through an epic century of disaster, war, epidemic, and divisions strong enough to tear countries apart. In the midst of it all, these ordinary people with extraordinary resilience went on striving for a better life, for a better world. In uncovering their stories, Farley Shuford explores how the past shapes the present and the lessons our ancestors have for us today.
“Finding Home is an engrossing love letter to Ireland that emanates from the deepest human yearning to find one’s own roots. Part history, part memoir, Farley Shuford takes readers “beyond the pale” of the Irish countryside, to the doorstep of the American plains, and into dusty archives as she seeks to unravel her family’s own Celtic knot. The result is a moving and poetic talk told with the humor and grace of a storyteller, the doggedness of an investigative reporter and the incisiveness of a historian.”
— Lauren Etter, Investigative reporter for Bloomberg News, author of The Devil’s Playbook
”A picture can only say so much, but for Farley Shuford it said just enough to kick off a journey and one that many people are sure to treasure. She takes us into her here and its the painful reasons that pushed and pulled Irish people across oceans. It is a story for our time and for all times as long as people seek new lives in new places.”
— Juan Carlos Hernandez, Writer, and Immigration Program Coordinator for Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America
“Finding Home recounts Farley Shuford’s captivating quest to learn her family history, explore her Irish roots, and, ultimately to come home to her self. A must read for anyone who’s ever wanted to truly know the soil and the souls of their ancestors.”
— Nadine Kenney Johnstone, author, writing coach and Heart of the Story podcast host.
“A moving story in which history is repeated and past becomes present. Lyrical writing and dogged research transforms one family’s immigration journey into a timely pilgrimage for families of today.”
— Rev. Robert Oldershaw, Pastor Emeritus, St. Nicholas Parish, Evanston, IL
About Lois
Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and driven by a desire to know what and who came before her, she relishes history, travel, music, art, and baseball, and carries a deep love for Ireland in her heart. She has had a rich and varied career in all levels of education, most recently at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Mom to Becky, Gabe, Jes, and James, Lois shares an old house in Evanston, Illinois, with her husband Bob, and their cats, George and Gracie.
