Uphill Walkers

the long version

"From Madeleine Blais, best-selling author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, comes Uphill Walkers, a spirited and moving memoir of how her family pulled together in the face of tragedy to survive - and ultimately thrive.". "When five-year-old Maddy's father died in 1952, her pregnant mother and four siblings had to face an uncertain future alone. But her mother vowed to keep the family in its newly purchased house in rural Massachusetts and to provide each child with the same education and opportunities they would have received had their father lived. As they came of age in an Irish-American household that often struggled to make ends meet, the Blais children would rise again and again to overcome all obstacles, from the complex vicissitudes of Catholic doctrinal education to the inevitable sibling rivalries. And at every step of the way they were inspired by their indomitable mother, who expected much but gave even more."--BOOK JACKET.