“Donna Girouard has written a memoir that brings vividly to life a New England family, with a memorable cast of characters and all a family’s tensions and intrigues as well as the story of an entire community. In so doing, she also vivifies the house where her family lived during her childhood. The reader finishes this book feeling that he or she has actually inhabited the family home which becomes in these pages a living, breathing creature. The Other Side is a coming of age story and a fine memorial to the author’s family and its way of life, its joys and sorrows” - Richard Tillinghast, author of Finding Ireland: a Poet's Explorations of Irish Literature and Culture and An Armchair Traveller's History of Istanbul
“Donna Girouard has a real feeling for the sorrows and joys of everyday American life and presents her characters with passion and understanding” - Dan Wakefield, author of Going All the Way and New York in the Fifties
“A lovely and passionate memoir, THE OTHER SIDE contemplates the blessing and burden of family history, and how one's first home place can shape an individual's identity long after childhood is over. This is an elegant, haunting, and original book." --Susan Tekulve, author of IN THE GARDEN OF STONE and SAVAGE PILGRIMS