French Boy/ A 1950’s Franco-American Childhood Book Launch with Denis Ledoux!

The Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine invites you to join us on Monday, October 16, 2023 at 6 pm for the launch of Denis Ledoux’s new memoir, French Boy/ A Franco-American Childhood. The event will include a reception with refreshments, a reading and a Q & A with Ledoux. There is no fee for our programs, which are made possible by the Québec Delegation in Boston.

French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood chronicles the life of a Maine boy from 1947 through to 1960.  According to David Soucy, Marketing Assistant at The Memoir Network, “Born in Lewiston, a small industrial Maine city and then raised on a farm, Denis Ledoux’s life is typical of many Maine Franco men and women of his generation, and as such, it is an important addition to our understanding of one of Maine’s ethnic communities—and the USA’s—in the last century.”

In French Boy, Ledoux writes about his generation’s loss of its history and culture. He has studded this remarkable memoir with historical information that will explain much about Franco-America to both Francos and non-Francos. It is full of photos from family collections and endnotes.  “My personal and family story is a sort of trellis through which I have intertwined Franco and American history,” said Ledoux. “French Boy is only partially a personal story. More than that, it is a slice of history.”

Denis Ledoux holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education. He has taught Franco studies at the university level and has been a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities on the subjects of cultural diversity and Franco North American culture and history.

As a short story writer, he drew on family characters, settings, and stories for his fiction. In 1990, he won the Maine Fiction Award for Mountain Dance & Other Stories. His other titles include What Became of Them and Other Stories from Franco-America, and Lives in Translation: An Anthology of Contemporary Franco-American Writings, which he edited. Denis’ short fiction has twice been honored with the Maine Writing Fellowship Award (1991, 1996), an National Education Association-based merit award. Ledoux has also served as a Maine Touring Artist for the Maine Arts Commission, leading programs on creative writing, personal history preservation, the history of immigration in New England, and Franco-American culture. In 1996, Denis was named Lifewriting Professional of the Year by the Association of Personal Historians. He directs The Memoir Network, an international group of lifewriting teachers and writers. The book is available through The Memoir Network, 95 Gould Road, Lisbon Falls, Maine 04252, through Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. Office hours are Monday through Friday, 9AM-5PM ET or by calling 207-353-5454. For more information, email Ledoux at memoirs@thememoirnetwork.com

Denis Ledoux lives and works in Maine, just a mile from his boyhood home. His current projects include: A sequel to French Boy which takes the reader through Denis’ next years; a nonfiction story of his early Canadian ancestors, Here to Stay / A Slice of Franco-America in the Seventeenth Century; and Coming Down, a novel of a Québecois family immigrating to Maine in 1890.

This event will be hybrid. If you would like to join via Zoom, use this link to register:

https://maine.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkdeGhqTguGdQEEh_UKgpShwk_fMHT1izL

For more information or to register for this event, contact the FAC archivist, Anna Faherty at anna.faherty@maine.edu or by phone (207) 753-6545. If you have questions about disability access or need to request disability accommodations (e.g. sign language interpreters, materials in electronic format, etc.), please contact Anna. Requests should be made as soon as possible to allow sufficient time for the accommodation process.