". . . that kind of insight  
into the dichotomy of life is
quite an accomplishment indeed."
--- Patricia F. D'Ascoli 
Publisher, Connecticut Muse

"The writing is engaging and 
enjoyable, the themes universal. 
As you learn about the author's 
life, you might even learn a bit 
about yourself, too."
--- Suzanne Strempek Shea, author 
of Songs From a Lead-Lined Room 
and Shelf Life

"Polished and wonderfully 
written with humor and attention 
to the smallest detail."
--- Daniel Blasi, editor 
of Full Circle Journal

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With the depth of a memoir and the flow of a novel, Sheirer chronicles how his simple youth of farm, sports, school, nature, and family led him to an unlikely adulthood as an author and college professor. From the first line, this book explores intensely personal experiences and relationships with humor, surprise, awe, suspense, and deep insight. In bookstores overflowing with shallow celebrity "tell-alls" and wallowing rants about dysfunctional upbringings, this memoir stands out as a beautifully written account of a mostly happy, mostly normal, fully real life at once both ordinary and extraordinary.

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A complimentary copy of Growing Up Mostly Normal in the Middle of Nowhere: A Memoir is available to qualified reviewers. Email the information below to mary@foremostpress.com

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About This Book

"I wasn't kidnapped as a child, never abused, abandoned, beaten, or sold to the highest bidder."

So begins John Sheirer's delightful Growing Up Mostly Normal in the Middle of Nowhere. With the depth of a memoir and the flow of a novel, Sheirer chronicles how his simple youth of farm, sports, school, nature, and family led him to an unlikely adulthood as an author and college professor.

In bookstores overflowing with shallow celebrity "tell-alls" and wallowing rants about dysfunctional upbringings, this memoir stands out as a beautifully written account of a mostly happy, mostly normal, fully real life at once both ordinary and extraordinary. Sheirer explores intensely personal experiences and relationships with humor, surprise, awe, suspense, and deep insight.

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He lives in Somers, Connecticut, where he is an avid reader of memoirs, photographer, and hiker who does volunteer land preservation work with the Northern Connecticut Land Trust.

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Feel free to use all or part of the following, and edit to suit. This content was prepared for your use. We ask no acknowledgement of any kind.

In Growing Up Mostly Normal in the Middle of Nowhere: a Memoir, John Sheirer teaches us we can go home again . . . in fact, like the author, we never really left.

Sheirer, a native of Madley, Pennsylvania, takes us on a humorous and yet poignant journey from his "mostly normal" boyhood in the "middle of nowhere" to his present job as faculty member of Asnuntuck Community College in Connecticut.

The memoir is refreshingly upbeat unlike many of today's screaming tell-alls. It's written as a series of evocative and candid vignettes as he returns to the old farmstead after twenty years.

Growing up in a family of modest means, John recounts the hardships as well as the joys of everyday life. He ties together the two passages of his life--where he is and where he's been.

You'll laugh as he suddenly realizes he's inherited some of his mother's qualities. At his first big trip away from home--his senior class outing to New York City--a seven hour bus ride. You may shed a tear as he recalls the significance of that last arm-wrestling match with his father. The last moments he spent with his Grandma before her death and the "secret" he learns.

If you're familiar with the roads he travels home on his route to the old farm in the south of southwest central Pennsylvania, you may feel you, too, are on your way home. He includes bits of local legend and history of the area.

Sheirer recently designed a memoir writing course at the college he teaches in. Surely this explains in part why his story is so richly told. You won't soon forget it.

Growing Up Mostly Normal in the Middle of Nowhere: a Memoir was published by Foremost Press. It can be ordered through local bookstores and at ForemostPress.com, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com.
ISBN 0-9748921-1-4, 208 pp, $13.97.