Modern Faerie Tales

Heartbreakingly beautiful and exquisitely raw: a memoir of a young poet’s search for the truth about her son’s death, and the journey into alcoholism that nearly killed her.

Acclaimed poet and memoirist Nick Flynn aptly says of this book, “If any memoir has a pulse running through it, if any work of art contains within it the potential of transcendence, it is in your hands.” That pulse and transcendence lives in every page of I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl .

At fifteen, Kelle Groom first feels the calming, numbing embrace of alcohol as it warms her chest, loosens her tongue, and allows her to connect with people and explore intimacy in ways she never could. She begins drinking before school, blacking out, and falling for damaged and dangerous men. At nineteen, Kelle is an out-of-control alcoholic and a single mother who gives her newborn son to faraway relatives to adopt. When her child dies from leukemia, Kelle hurtles toward the bottom she needs to hit before she can come back to life. Based on the author’s autobiographical essay published in Ploughshares, this hypnotic and compelling memoir is told in snapshots of raw honesty and vividly rendered detail only an accomplished poet such as Kelle Groom can deliver.

Exploring the most painful aspects of her addiction and loss, delving deep into her family history to uncover the source, Kelle traces with unflinching clarity and breathtaking grace the many complex forces that come together to shape a life, a death, and a literary voice. An unforgettable against-the-odds tale, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl reveals the mysterious ways human suffering can be redeemed.