Have you got yours yet?

Published March 2021

down they forgot is a memoir of an American childhood and adolescence in the turbulence of the 1960s and 70s, a time of sweeping social and political discontent. Assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, drugs and dropping out all inform this haunting story about personal identity and the consequences of loneliness, despite the passionate and fleeting friendships of youth.

“down they forgot is a work of remarkable freshness. I admire the moral and ethical delicacy of the writing, which combines startling candour with this beautifully judged instinct to leave the mystery of personality in place. Abby favours fragments not just because memory seems to work like this but because the sort of hesitancy implied in the form is a great match for the psychology of this memorable family, where silence and looks create their own rich (and richly elusive) vocabulary.” —Damien Wilkins, International Institute of Modern Letters

Where You Can Get a Copy: down they forgot is available world-wide from on-line retailers (Barnes & Noble, Book Depository), as an e-book (Smashwords, Kindle) or from your favourite indie bookseller (if you don’t mind waiting while they order it in from Ingram). If you live in New Zealand, there are a handful of booksellers stocking down they forgot in the Wellington region (Unity Wellington, VicBooks, Good Books, Marsden Books and Books & Co Otaki), and Time Out Books in Auckland also has a few copies. You or your favourite bookseller can buy down they forgot directly from me! Better yet: ask your local library to order a copy!

Here’s a link to my Author Profile on Smashwords with an interview about the book and my writing process: https://www.smashwords.com/interview/Abz509


	

down they forgot: a memoir

Very pleased to announce the release of my first book!

A memoir of my American childhood and adolescence set in the turbulent 1960s and 70s, down they forgot traces the story of finding my way in a family overshadowed by mental illness. Social and political discontent—assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, drugs and dropping out—inform this haunting story about personal identity and the consequences of loneliness, despite the passionate and fleeting friendships of youth.

“Letteri casts a wide net over her youth and wrests from that ocean of memory such gleaming treasures.  The whole of youth is captured to perfection in these essays, the intimate and the political, the terrible and the joyous.  In the end down they forgot does what the best memoirs must; it reveals Letteri’s lost world while beckoning readers to recall their own.” —Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

The print edition is available through major online retailers — Book Depository, Barnes and Noble and Amazon and by special order at your favourite independent bookseller. Also available as an ebook for Kindle (Amazon), Apple Books or Smashwords. Published by Lilith House Press.

ISBN 978-1-7335387-4-3 (print edition) or 978-1-7355387-5-0 (ebook)