Always There, Always Gone

A Daughter's Search for Truth

By: Marty Ross-Dolen

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Paperback | 6 May 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
240 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 2.29

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For fans of Natasha Trethewey and Maggie Smith, a mother-daughter story of multigenerational trauma, grief, discovery, and love, with the backdrops of an historic American tragedy and an iconic family business, written in lyrical, fragmented form.

In 1960, six years before Marty Ross-Dolen was born, her maternal grandparents were killed in an airline disaster involving the collision of two commercial jets over New York City. They were traveling from Columbus, Ohio, to seek placement for their family’s iconic magazine, Highlights for Children, on the newsstands. Their daughter—Marty’s mother—was fourteen years old at the time. This genre-bending memoir tells Marty’s story of being raised by a mother in protracted mourning.

The fragmented narrative explores Marty’s journey, from personal ways of coping as a child to the evolution of a mother-daughter relationship that matured over time. It is also about her longing to know her maternal grandmother, and through saved letters and photographs from her grandmother’s life, she enters a fantastical relationship that serves to replace one that otherwise could never exist. Ultimately it is about the discovery of truth, in unearthing the story of her grandparents’ deaths and her mother’s acute loss, in freeing her grandmother’s image from the weight of a tragic death, and in Marty’s own delivery from darkness. Beyond that, it is about universal life choices, the ways human beings unknowingly determine their destinies, and the healing powers of truth and love.

Industry Reviews

“A tragic accident, an inherited trauma, a fierce desire to protect. These are the threads Marty Ross-Dolen weaves in Always There, Always Gone. Searching for a grandmother she never knew, Ross-Dolen forges connections between three generations—grandmother, mother, daughter—in this wise and moving memoir. Innovative in its approach, Always There, Always Gone reminds us of the resilience of the human spirit and the ties that bind.”—Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Bright Forever

“Reading Always There, Always Gone is an immersive, mesmerizing experience. It’s been a while since I read a story that so completely pulled me in. With striking, fresh metaphors and carefully crafted sentences, the writing tugged on every fiber of my mother-being. Days after closing this haunting memoir, I was in a daze, feeling very much like a time traveler returning to the present. Marty Ross-Dolen’s powerful words and this book will always be with me.”—Christine French Cully, Editor-in-Chief, Highlights for Children, and Author of Dear Highlights: What Adults Can Learn from 75 Years of Letters and Conversations with Kids

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