Saving Ellen

A Memoir of Hope and Recovery

By: Maura Casey

Narrated by: Katie Boothe

A coming-of-age memoir that follows a large, working-class Irish family as it plunges into chaos in the wake of a terminal diagnosis—and the author's own hidden struggle to endure when her sister's disease becomes the dark star around which they all revolve.

Financial privation and her father’s drunken scenes formed the backdrop to Maura Casey's childhood, but her sister Ellen’s years-long struggle with kidney disease consumed her whole family. Determined to see Ellen live to adulthood, her mother fought medical advice to donate a kidney at a time when organ transplants were medical miracles. She concealed the true impact of that decision, which would affect the family for years to come.

Set in Buffalo amidst the tumult of the 1960s and 70s, Saving Ellen traces the author's recovery from alcoholism and sexual assault and tells of her irrepressible older sister Ellen, who fought to claim her dream of becoming an athlete; her smart, feminist mother, whose World War II Army service prepared her to manage her own platoon of six children; and her adulterous, alcoholic father who, at the end, was haunted by his shortcomings and regrets. Despite the hard truths of her childhood, Saving Ellen is ultimately a story of humor at unexpected moments as well as the grace of reconciliation and gratitude.

Saving Ellen will appeal to those who have endured the stress of caring for a chronically ill family member, with all the fraught choices that entails. Listeners who have experienced the unique insanity of living in a large alcoholic family will recognize the mix of madness and humor that forms the foundation of daily life. Casey's story has parallels to Monica Wood’s When We Were the Kennedys, which details the struggle her family began when her father died of a heart attack, and Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, with its tale of family dysfunction and siblings trying to help one another cope in a dilapidated house with an unstable father.

©2025 Maura Casey (P)2025 Skyhorse Audio

Connecting memory to hometown

What a wonderful read/listen. Ms Casey shared both the warmth and agonies of a dysfunctional family with humor and the power forgiveness.

Family Saga

This book was very well written and insightful. If you like me, I highly recommend this one. I liked how the author waved her sister struggle with kidney disease into how it affected their family dynamics sometimes it lol but not for long so I rank it between a 4 1/2 and five stars. I appreciate the author sharing her story but I think I like the most about the story is her mom’s love for her children. It was beautiful to see how she wrote about it.

The love between mother and daughters was very strong and written very beautifully.

I was disappointed that you did not spend more time describing the battle of giving up an addiction. Many in the family were alcoholics which takes support which it must have in order to give up alcoholism.