French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood is an insightful memoir of a young life both at the margins and at the center of the 1950s American experience. Born in 1947, Denis Ledoux had a mid-twentieth-century youth that almost seems to have been lived in another country and another century, but it is typical of what many Franco-Americans born in his generation experienced. French Boy explores the developmental stages of childhood; family dynamics, bilingualism, acculturation and assimilation, alienation and shame. Told by a third-generation Franco, this life story is set in a time of the last stage of the decline of New England industrialization. The Franco-American community in New England, made up of French-speaking families, was experiencing the pains of change, resisting in its own way being absorbed in the United States and disappearing.In French Boy, you will read • the conflict and tension inherent in bilingualism, • persistent nostalgia for a past that he had not lived, • looking for mentors beyond one’s working-class reach, • how the unassimilable ethnics (as Francos were once called) did assimilate and acculturate, and • the discomfort of “otherness," of feeling on the outside.What others have said of Denis Ledoux's “The stories of Denis Ledoux come from a quietly strange culture—that of the French in America—which gives them their own quiet strangeness. Clear and deep, these stories try to understand something just beyond understanding.” — David Plante / novelist, essayist / National Book Award nominee “[Ledoux’s] stories are fragile islands of the human heart where the unspoken epiphanies of joy and sorrow are given voice and presence. And Ledoux’s own voice shimmers with a distinct Québecois-American sensibility that makes these stories heart-breaking and haunting.” — A. Poulin, Jr. / poet, editor / founder of BOA EDITIONS [In Ledoux’s stories,] “French-English language and culture conflict exist as an undercurrent...The problem for a writer will nearly always be uncovering the social subtleties arising from insistent domination...and that Ledoux [does].” — Elizabeth Hardwick / Novelist, Guggenheim Fellow / a founder of The New York Review of Books "French Boy put me in awe of Denis Ledoux’s talent, work ethic, good sense, and common humanity. These qualities add up to a touch of genius, which in summary displays Ledoux's ability to bring drama and feeling, as well as meaning, to the reportage of ordinary life." — Ernest Hébert / Novelist / Whirlybird Island "In French Boy, Denis Ledoux paints an intimate and informative portrait of his Franco-American boyhood in 1950s Maine, where he felt “separate from the present which seemed foreign—and American.” Ledoux’s abiding affinity for story enriches this tale of a thoughtful boy seeking more than his parents could provide." — Steven Riel / Poet / Edgemere "French Boy shines a spotlight on our complex Franco history and rich culture, and I found many points of connection throughout. You will, too." — Susan Poulin / dramatist / Pardon My French!; Author / Finding Your Inner Moose; Blogger / Just Ask Ida With vivid and painstaking detail, Denis Ledoux recreates Maine’s Franco-American co