Billy Boy

Jean Flahive has a passion for shedding light on lesser known pieces of Maine history, blending historical realities with works of fiction. She is co-author of two children’s picture books, Remember Me, Tomah Joseph’s Gift to Franklin Roosevelt, which won a 2009 Moonbeam Gold Award, and The Galloping Horses of Willowbrook, which was a finalist in the 2012 Maine Literary Awards. She is also the author of two young adult historical fictions, Billy Boy, the Sunday Soldier of the 17th Maine and Railroad to the Moon, Elijah’s Story. Her newest picture book, The Old Mainer and the Sea, is to be released by Islandport Press in October 2017. Jean and her husband live on the coast of Maine.

Author photo by Kevin Bennett.

In the News:

• Q & A: Mari Dieumegard (November 22, 2017)

• South Portland author to write new picture book with Islandport Press (February 1, 2017)

"This first novel is a glorious tour de force. Never have I read a more compelling and sympathetic portrayal from within the mind of the mentally challenged ... I did not come up for breath as the story rolled along, every beat strong and right." —Historical Novels Review

"Readers will think of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. Just as each of these classic American novels has a distinctive flair—earnestly rough-hewn, ironically colloquial, sardonically precise—Billy Boy has its own style, emphatically sensuous . . . . In literary heaven, Flahive's Billy Laird may sit at the table with Benjy Compson from William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and Lennie Small from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men."—The Quoddy Times

"Flahive's directive skill of rendering conversation throughout her book is remarkable. We are there in the space with Elijah and Billy, with Harry, with the troops under fire in the reality of what it now means, their mustering up for a dangerous rarified cause. . . . Flahive is surely one to be studied for her craftsmanship, her extraordinary interweaving of researched history and imaginitive realism. We see war and its sinister turnings, and the moments of unexpected enlightenment through an inner connection." —Maine Sunday Telegram