The Grandmothers: A Family Portrait

By: Glenway Westcott

Narrated by: Cindy Henkin

Alwyn Tower, a young expatriate in 1920s Paris, wrestles with the legacy of family. The Civil War has cast a long shadow upon Alwyn’s ancestors, early settlers of the Wisconsin frontier. The young writer must now try to make sense of their stories. Their loves and losses. The hard-earned lessons. All they’ve said and left unsaid.

What will he take from this legacy? What will he leave behind? What role will their stories play in his own? Alwyn must come to terms with what it means to be a Tower, and what it means to be himself.

The Grandmothers: A Family Portrait is a fictional account of author Glenway Wescott’s own rural Wisconsin family and in 1927 was awarded the Harper Novel Prize. Each chapter reimagines a different ancestor’s story.

©2023 Cindy Henkin (P)2023 Cindy Henkin