Literature

Living Madly: Blessings By Emilie-Noelle Provost My husband, Rob, and I moved to Lowell nearly twenty-four years ago with our then eleven-month-old daughter. For the previous four years, we’d been living in a rural area of western Massachusetts. The nearest grocery store was fifteen miles away. We liked it there,…

Boarding School Blues: Ch. 57 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 57: We can work it out  During the days leading up to the weekend, Blanche was confined to the infirmary. The slightest noise prompted her to pretend sleep.  She didn’t feel like talking or praying out loud with Sister Marie-Ange. And…

The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Lots of time for reading when you’re waiting for broken bones to heal! Fiction to follow. After the Last Border:Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau tells the often-checkered history of American treatment of refugees,…

Living Madly: Just Friends By Emilie-Noelle Provost In the 1989 film, When Harry Met Sally, Harry Burns, the character played by Billy Crystal, famously says, “. . . men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” I know some people believe this, but…

Boarding School Blues: Ch. 56 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 56: An elixir and a frappe Blanche’s head was a Tilt-A-Whirl. Buzzing voices extracted her from stupor. “Andy, get Marieanne! PF’s bleedin’ all over the place. Madeleine, help me turn her over. One, two, three, go!” Blanche didn’t need to open…

The Moth of Literary Fame: A Tale of Two Writers By David Daniel Emerson likened literary fame to a “flitting moth.” The recent imaginative-biodrama Emily reminds us what an uncertain thing a writer’s legacy can be. Dead from tuberculosis at 30, a mere year after her lone novel appeared to…

Boarding School Blues: Ch. 55 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 55: Here Lies . . . It was already the end of January 1966 and SFA was well into its daily work routine spiced, sometimes, with a little bit of play. The boarders enjoyed their morning maple butter and the chores…

In 1969, Tim Trask returned from the Vietnam War and took a job as a guard at Massachusetts Correctional Institute (MCI) Concord. The following is taken from his memoir about that experience. Other parts of that work, West of Walden, appeared on this site as Odysseus Wandering (on Oct. 4,…

In her newly released second novel, The River is Everywhere, Lowell writer-editor-author Emilie-Noelle Provost takes readers on a roller-coaster coming of age ride that is immersed in the Franco-American culture of the northeast. Ernest Benoit, the 16-year old protagonist, is shattered by the accidental drowning death of his best friend…