The lessons author Gerard Healy learned growing up in Bostons neighborhood of Dorchester prepared him well for the life that followed. His parents, teachers, kind neighbors, true friends, and the culture of Dorchester provided Healy with a solid base of values. Trial and error would fill in the gaps. The stories in Originally from Dorchester narrate the good, the bad, and beauty of life there in the mid-60s. A story of place and time, it chronicles a young boys struggle for identity against the competing forces of peer and gang pressure. A predominantly Irish working-class neighborhood, Dorchester held everything including brutal street fighters, true friends, intimidating nuns, and protective neighbors. Carrying the spirit of adventure with him always, Originally from Dorchester shares the lessons learned from family and friends that Healy has carried with him as hes roamed far beyond the towns borders. It explores the complex relationships of adolescent peers, the struggle to break free of intimidating violence, and the saving value of friendship.

A photographic portrait of small town America in the 1970s.

Judith Kirwan Kelley provides a unique "lived" perspective on growing up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, during tumultuous socio-political times. Deeply impacted by the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the decade of the 1960s dramatically shaped the contexts of living in America. The changing family as well as the social movements for Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, Rights of the Disabled, the sexual revolution, among other forms of cultural upheaval, all played their part in the life of one Originally from Dorchester (OFD). Written with humor and pathos, the stories are based on the author's experiences, backed up by a comprehensive investigation of written sources which explore the complex history of mandatory school desegregation in Boston, and other cultural phenomena occurring at the time. Kirwan Kelley's detailed elaborations of family, neighborhood, and complex cultural dynamics are reflective of both the consistency and unpredictability of life. Intended to inform as well as to entertain, Kirwan Kelley clearly demonstrates appreciation of having come of age in Dorchester. She is, and always will be, a Dorchester Girl at heart.