2 Franco American Books for Everyone's Reading List

I’ve made no secret of my love for books about our heritage (see Our Story vs Our Stories: January '23). I recently finished 2 of those individual family stories that deserve some recognition, not to mention space on our bookshelves. I’m going to call these two titles ones that “break the mold” of our traditional story lines.

Paula Grandpre Wood’s “The Long Walk Home with the Ceinture Flechee” is a passion-filled journey through generations of family history, archives and intense personal monologue. Where this story breaks the mold is that all of this context surrounds a family heirloom: an arrow sash handed down for over 250 years. 

Throughout the story, the author combines research on the sash, with genealogy and targeted trips to her heritage towns in Quebec for the purpose of reuniting the heirloom with its previous owners at various cemeteries and church records repositories. 

The story includes many of the standard family story items - tracing the family's journey from France to New France and eventually to the United States, as well as genealogy, and recorded family experiences. The sash, however, sets this book apart. There is meticulous research on the sash and its owners, but also the key details of who and how the Sash is handed down from one generation to the next, and the author’s deep commitment to preserving not only the sash, but its traditions.

The second book that breaks the mold is Charlie Gargiulo’s “The Legends of Little Canada.”  This is less of a book on family history and more on personal experience. Where the story breaks the mold is that it’s not about being Franco American or any of the traditions that normally go with it, but rather the neighborhood and its eventual demise. 

Set in Lowell’s Little Canada neighborhood in the 1960, the book tells of the author’s story of moving to the neighborhood, his initial anxieties, his eventual integration and love for it, and his deep emotional feelings about its demise in the name of urban renewal. 

The book contains a cast of family, friends and neighborhood personalities with the Quebecois Names readers would expect. It covers deep religious convictions of his Franco American family members (his mother’s side), including the parochial school, that permeate the traditional stories. However, the author never dives deep into any of these aspects; he, in fact, identifies with his father’s Italian heritage when quarreling with the nuns over not speaking French at school. 

The book paints a vivid picture of one of the most commonly known Franco American neighborhoods in New England, and its bitter end, all through the eyes of a teenager. 

Grandpre Wood’s book is lengthy and packed with key details, written in a combination of historical and 1st person style. Gargiulo’s is shorter with quick hitting chapters told mostly in the first person. Both books are packed with emotion and details that are beneficial to understanding our overall story. I am grateful to have met one of the authors and only hope I can someday meet the other. These two have done a wonderful job of helping tell our story through their individual stories. For anyone in search of some great Franco reading, give these two titles a try.