Unbound Edition Press today announced it will publish Tom Sleigh’s memoir, Rosie, in April 2026. Sleigh’s extraordinary account of his mother’s life is told from the vantage of her death: her decision—with Sleigh’s help—to take her own life at the age of 97.
The book chronicles her rise from extreme poverty as a Kansas Dustbowl farm girl to become a legendary public high school English teacher. But there are darker overtones: her ambivalence toward domestic life is complicated by mental illness, shock treatment, and sexual abuse. And Sleigh’s discovery of his mother’s journals minutes after her death makes a rich portrait even richer. Rosie is a warm, troubled, at times very funny investigation of his mother’s quiet passion to lead an examined life.
Sleigh’s many books include the 2023 Paterson Poetry Prize winner, The King’s Touch, as well as House of Fact, House of Ruin, Station Zed, and Army Cats, all from Graywolf Press. His most recent book of essays is The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing In an Age of Refugees. His honors include a Kingsley Tufts Award, Shelly Memorial Award, both the Updike Award and Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His poems appear in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Threepenny, Poetry, and other magazines. A Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, he lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Of Sleigh’s book of essays The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing In an Age of Refugees, Phil Klay wrote, “Tom Sleigh is our best essayist on political violence. Whether discussing his wartime reporting, or the victims of the Stalinist terror, or American racism, he applies a unique blend of intellectual fearlessness, moral precision, and an eye for the strange, the beautiful, and the deeply human.”
Peter Campion, executive editor at Unbound Edition Press, notes: “I’m astonished by Sleigh’s exploration of his mother’s life and death. His utterly unsentimental, searching approach goes hand in hand with surprising warmth and humor. I’m also just knocked out by the prose. This is a book about a topic too rarely discussed—a book we need right now—and, at the same time, it’s the work of a true artist.”
Patrick Davis, publisher and editor in chief at Unbound Edition Press, said, “Tom’s memoir stands among the most moving and courageous I have ever read. It is intimate confession and generous balm alike, both tenderly given in the service of humanity and the most heart-wrenching moments each of us must face. This is what literary fearlessness and heroism look like, pure courage upon the page.”
