Maud Newton and Garrard Conley at Conley’s book launch in May 2016.
I’m delighted and honored to share early praise for Ancestor Trouble from Garrard Conley and Alexis Coe, two more amazing writers who took time from their own important work to read my book and say nice things.
“I’ve been searching for this book a long time, one that would help make sense of my own complicated family history. Newton’s incredibly smart hybrid of a memoir is essential reading for anyone interested in learning more about themselves through the prism of the past — which is to say, nearly everyone. I can’t wait to share this with my family.” — Garrard Conley, New York Times bestselling author of Boy Erased
“You can’t make this stuff up, and in this beautifully written memoir, Maud Newton doesn’t have to. She brings a historian’s rigor to the pursuit of family lore that has, by design or accident, shed significant details along the way. The story of an ancestor who murdered a man with a hay hook is not, as it turns out, that simple. The end result, a triumph, is two books in one: an accessible guide to genealogy and the harrowing saga of an American family steeped in intergenerational trauma. I will be feeling the aftershocks of this book for some time.” — Alexis Coe, New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington
