A Stockbridge Homecoming

Penelope S. Duffy's brief memoir A Stockbridge Homecoming: The True Story of a Family's Journey is fraught with suspense and infused with tenderness and hope. Her father, a missionary, takes his family to China in the mid-1940s, before Mao Zedong's victory seems likely. The political situation quickly becomes dangerous for Americans, husband is separated from wife and children, and the Communist revolution is in full force. Duffy, born in China, recounts the story she heard again and again growing up her father caught on the other side of enemy lines, the brave Chinese people who helped him, her sister's tuberculosis, her mother's stoicism. Returning to the U.S. and Duffy's father's new job in time for the holidays, the family finds a haven beyond their fondest hopes. (Nov.)