Author Description

French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood is a glimpse into a young life both at the margins and at the center of the 1950s American experience. Born in 1947, Denis Ledoux had a childhood that almost seems to have been lived in another country and another century, but it is typical of what many Franco-Americans of his generation experienced.<br/><br/>French Boy explores much: the developmental stages of childhood; family dynamics, bilingualism, acculturation and assimilation, alienation and shame.<br/>In French Boy, you will read about: • the conflict inherent in bilingualism,<br/>• persistent nostalgia for a past,<br/>• looking for mentors beyond one’s reach,<br/>• how the unassimilable ethnics assimilated, and<br/>• the discomfort and shame of “otherness.”<br/>What others have said of Denis Ledoux's writing: “The stories of Denis Ledoux come from a quietly strange culture—that of the French in America—which gives them their own quiet strangeness. Clear and deep, these stories try to understand something just beyond understanding.”<br/>— David Plante / novelist, essayist / National Book Award nominee<br/><br/>“[Ledoux’s] stories are fragile islands of the human heart where the unspoken epiphanies of joy and sorrow are given voice and presence. And Ledoux’s own voice shimmers with a distinct Québecois-American sensibility that makes these stories heart-breaking and haunting.”<br/>— A. Poulin, Jr. / poet, editor / founder of BOA EDITIONS<br/><br/>[In Ledoux’s stories,] “French-English language and culture conflict exist as an undercurrent...The problem for a writer will nearly always be uncovering the social subtleties arising from insistent domination...and that<br/>Ledoux [does].”<br/>— Elizabeth Hardwick / Novelist, Guggenheim Fellow / a founder of The New York Review of Books<br/><br/>"French Boy put me in awe of Denis Ledoux’s talent, work ethic, good sense, and common humanity. These qualities add up to a touch of genius, which in summary displays Ledoux's