Monday, December 5, 2016
6:30 – 8:00 PM
Thayer Memorial Library
Mary Bonina – My Father’s Eyes
Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Set mid-to-late 20th century (with the heart of the book set in the 1950s and '60s), MY FATHER'S EYES is a loving daughter's memoir of a family coming to terms with a legacy of blindness, and a father's heroic efforts to secure independence and dignity.
"Not many pages into this gloriously moving book, a feeling begins to grow that it would have been a humbling yet exquisite experience to have sat and talked with Biagio John Bonina. What his daughter Mary Bonina has given us is a solid and lasting portrait of a man who was simple and complicated. (That is not a contradiction once you come to know him.)... America is a country of grand men and women who live on a modest scale, and no one fits that category more than he does. Once his eyes began to fail him, he lived even more for his family and its welfare and his efforts and work make him in my mind, the kind of real hero we fail to glorify anymore. So enter this book and come to know her father and his dedicated overwhelmingly loyal daughter, as well as a large stage of family members and friends who are unforgettable and insanely knowable and human."—Edward P. Jones
"Mary Bonina casts her considerable spell with exquisite sentences and unerring evocative details. She is a writer of inordinate compassion, formidable intelligence, and unflinching honesty. MY FATHER'S EYES documents a family's coming to grips with the legacy of blindness, a daughter's unflagging allegiance to her father, and one man's heroic determination to live a life of independence and quiet dignity despite obstacles that would crush the strongest of us. The book is an inspiration. When I finished reading it, I walked around for days seeing the world through its lens. Yes, it's that good. It's that important."—John Dufresne
Mary Bonina has published poetry, memoir, and fiction. Her latest collection of poetry, Clear Eye Tea, is now available (Cervena Barva Press, 2010). She isalso the author of Living Proof, a chapbook (Cervena Barva Press, 2007).
Bonina grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts. She holds an MFA degree in the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where her mentors were some of the best known and appreciated American contemporary prose writers and poets.
Bonina grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts. She holds an MFA degree in the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where her mentors were some of the best known and appreciated American contemporary prose writers and poets.
