About the Book
A passion for books creates a lasting bond between teenage Patty Jo and David, but small-town prejudice and social differences doom their romance.
After a summer of reading and falling in love, David heads for university, foreign adventure, and a dazzling career; Patty Jo marries slick, over-confident Don Ried.
Yet plans can go horribly wrong. The victim of her violent husband, Patty Jo abandons her home and children to live on the streets of Toronto. David, a high-ranking executive in Paris, is dismayed by the superficiality of corporate success.
Forty years later, Patty Jo and David meet again. Both have defied society; both have fulfilled their dreams. And what if first love was the right one after all, and destiny has the last word?
Format: ebook (260 pages) Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Publication date: 16th March 2026 Genre: Historical fiction
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My Review
Although having the story arc of a romance, Words for Patty Jo is much darker than I was expecting.
The summer love affair between David and Patty Jo has to be conducted in secrecy. David’s family wouldn’t approve of Patty Jo, the girl from the wrong side of town, and Patty Jo won’t – or can’t – disclose to David the cruel reality of her home life. Their life experiences are poles apart. This is illustrated in an excruciating scene in which Patty Jo is invited to dinner at David’s house and is completely out of her depth, patronised by his awful mother and leered at by his father.
I have to say I wasn’t entirely convinced the feelings David and Patty Jo had for each other were so all-consuming that they would have lasted a lifetime had events not intervened. David’s attraction to Patty Jo seemed quite superficial and I got the sense that for Patty Jo it was a dream rather than something rooted in reality. Although David attempts to keep the relationship going once he leaves for university, his letters remain unanswered. Sadly he cannot comprehend, as we do, the reasons for this.
With David gone, Patty Jo’s lack of self-worth leads to her marry salesman Don Ried. It’s a decision that will haunt her because, cruelly, his charming persona is just a facade. I found the descriptions of the violence inflicted on Patty Jo by Don, especially those of a sexual nature, very difficult to read although I appreciate the author was determined not to underplay the reality of abusive relationships. Heartbreakingly, when Patty Jo approaches others for help, she is rebuffed, dismissed or even blamed for not being a good enough wife, as if she has brought the violence on herself.
She takes the only option available to her but it means facing opprobrium, living on the edges of society and having to degrade herself to get through each day. The only thing that keeps her going is an ambition she’s harboured since childhood. It turns out the ability to reinvent yourself, something she has in spades, will be the key that unlocks the door.
You might be thinking at this point, what’s happening with David? The truth is I found myself way more invested in Patty Jo’s story than David’s, a testament to the author’s ability to create such a compelling character as Patty Jo. The trauma of her experiences seemed much more significant than David’s disillusionment with his highflying corporate lifestyle and succession of failed relationships. I admired him for following his heart and his conscience but it didn’t move me in the same way.
Beginning in the summer of 1967 and ending decades later, Words for Patty Jo is the moving story of two people navigating the vicissitudes of life and trying to find where they truly belong.
I received a digital review copy courtesy of the author.
In three words: Gritty, unflinching, emotional
About the Author
Writer, social critical artist, and impenitent teller of tall tales, Jill Arlene Culiner was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived in a mud house on the Hungarian Plain, in a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave, a haunted house on the English moors, and beside a Dutch canal. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village of no interest where, much to local dismay, she protects spiders, snakes, and weeds.
Observing people everywhere, she eavesdrops on all conversations and delights in any nasty, funny, ridiculous, sad, romantic, or boastful story. And when she can’t uncover salacious gossip, she makes it up.
She has won the Tanenbaum Non-Fiction Prize in Canadian Jewish History, the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, was shortlisted for the Foreward Magazine Prize, and twice for the Page Turner Awards. (Photo: Author website)
Connect with Jill
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