Homesick: A Memoir - Softcover

Ward, Sela

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060989076 ISBN 13: 9780060989071

Publisher: HarperEntertainment, 2003

Synopsis

This is a story about home . . .

At a time when much of America is yearning to recapture the spirit and feelings of a more innocent era, comes this exceptional new book from one of our most beloved actresses: a story of one woman's journey to reconnect with the landscape of her childhood.

Though best known today as the star of the television series Once & Again and Sisters, Sela Ward considers herself first and foremost a small-town girl. The eldest of four children, she was raised by a father who helped her believe in herself, and by a mother who taught her a sense of the importance of virtues like self-respect, grace, and sacrifice. In her hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, within a tightly-knit community of neighbors and kin, Sela learned ways that would remain with her throughout life -- humble virtues that were "forged in the hearth of a loving home."

After graduating from the University of Alabama, Sela left the South in search of the excitement of cities like New York and Los Angeles, and the creative rewards of an acting career. But as she started her own family, she found herself pining for the comforts of her small-town childhood -- and searching for a way to balance her children's West Coast upbringing with a taste of a more natural way of life. She and her husband built a second home on a farm there, where she and her family could retreat several times each year, and became involved in several projects designed to restore the vitality of the hometown she remembered so fondly. Even as Sela was reconnecting with the rhythms of home, though, her world was rocked by a crisis the family had long anticipated but never quite prepared for -- the death of her mother. As her family gathered around her mama's bedside, Sela's simple journey home became something far deeper: a turning point in her own life, as she pondered her mother's complicated legacy, and came to terms with just what it was she herself was searching for.

Filled with warmth, storytelling, and laughter, Homesick is a book to treasure: an exploration of the lessons we carry away with us from childhood, and a celebration of the bittersweet legacy of home.

About this title

About the Author:

Sela Ward is the recipient of two Emmy awards for her work on Once & Again and Sisters, and a Cable Ace Award for her role as Jessica Savitch in Almost Golden. She recently founded Hope Village for Children, a permanent home for abused and neglected children, in Meridian, Mississippi. Sela lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and their two children, and returns frequently with her family to her Mississippi hometown.

From Publishers Weekly:

This earnest memoir by Ward, the 46-year-old star of the 1990s sitcom hits Sisters and Once & Again and spokesperson for Sprint long distance, juxtaposes a jet-setting Hollywood image with a smalltown Mississippi past. More sugared up than a glass of Southern iced tea, the book will surely build Ward's reputation with her TV fan base, as it doesn't delve deep into Ward's psyche or tell all about the biz. It's targeted at the women Ward grew up with in Meridian, Miss. the same women she wants to reunite with now that she's returned there to begin settling down, loaded with cash, a Los Angeles venture capitalist husband and their two children. The fascinating trajectory of Ward's ideal American woman's life she went from cheerleader and homecoming queen at the University of Alabama to fashion model and fixture of New York nightlife should intrigue readers who can relate to culture shock. There's also a smattering of intelligently researched treatises on civil rights and on the contemporary crumbling of social bonds. A portion of the book's proceeds will go to a foundation for abused and neglected children that Ward founded last year in Meridian. Her overly saccharine tendencies notwithstanding, Ward gives readers a cute story of a smalltown girl's rise to celebrity. Photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperEntertainment
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060989076
• ISBN 13: 9780060989071
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272