Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: A Memoir of Learning to Believe You’re Gonna Be Okay

Written by Sean Dietrich

Narrated by Sean Dietrich

From celebrated storyteller "Sean of the South" comes an unforgettable memoir of love, loss, the friction of family memories, and the unlikely hope that you're gonna be alright.

Sean Dietrich was twelve years old when he scattered his father's ashes from the mountain range. His father was a man who lived for baseball, a steel worker with a ready wink, who once scaled a fifty-foot tree just to hang a tire swing for his son. He was also the stranger who tried to kidnap and kill Sean's mother before pulling the trigger on himself. He was a childhood hero, now reduced to a man in a box.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? is the story of what happens after the unthinkable, and the journey we all must make in finding the courage to stop the cycles of the past from laying claim to our future.

Sean was a seventh-grade drop-out, a dishwasher then a construction worker to help his mother and sister scrape by, and a self-described "nobody with a sad story behind him." Yet he cannot deny the glimmers of life's goodness even amid its rough edges. Such goodness becomes even harder to deny when Sean meets the love of his life at a fried chicken church potluck, and harder still when his lifelong love of storytelling leads him to stages across the southeast, where he is known and loved as "Sean of the South."

A story that will stay with you long after the final page, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? testifies to the strength that lives within us all to make our peace with the past and look to the future with renewed hope and wonder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Mar 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9780310355779

Sean Dietrich

Sean Dietrich is a columnist, humorist, multi-instrumentalist, and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His work has appeared on The Today Show and in Newsweek, Southern Living, Garden and Gun, and Reader’s Digest. His column appears weekly in newspapers throughout the US. He has authored eighteen books and over four thousand columns. He tours his one-man show throughout the US, makes appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, hosts the Sean of the South podcast, and he’s a really nice guy. Follow Sean’s daily writing at seandietrich.com or @seanofthesouth on Instagram.

Reviews for Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

[Ashlyn Forstall · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This might be the best audio memoir I have ever listened to. Ever.

[jinfrp · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow! It’s like coming home
Must read/listen. Thank you for this

[Julie Tilson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved every second of this book, and it was such a delight to hear it read by the author. Well written, engaging and had me captivated till the very end. Thank you, Sean for sharing your deepest wound and showing us there is purpose in our pain.

[drew palmer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am now a Sean Dietrich fan I listened to this book with out stopping. He has done us blue collar southerners proud!

[dianekeenoy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm a big Sean Dietrich fan! This book read by the author gives you the story of his childhood and the devastation the death of his father caused to him and his family. It also shows how he overcame this devastation and became the incredible storyteller and person he is today! Highly recommended!!!

[whitreidtan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Early tragedy can shape a child's whole life. The death by suicide of a parent is particularly formative, especially as in Sean Dietrich's case, when that parent tried to kill your other parent too. Dietrich has spent years grappling with the legacy of his father and his father's violent death and this memoir is the result of much of that grappling.

Opening with his memory of what he was doing the day that his father shot himself, it is clear that Dietrich is an accomplished storyteller. His stories build up, circling back again and again to his hate and love for his father, each emotion battling it out in his head and his heart. His tone is warm and despite the anger and hurt he feels, an anger and hurt that led him to drop out of school in seventh grade and work years of backbreaking manual labor jobs, he can still find the good and the sweetness in a situation. His stories about his growing up are hard and honest and heartfelt and his arc from furious child to an adult who can extend grace to others, and most importantly to himself, is engaging to read. He has a folksy tone and his essential southerness weaves through the narrative in every word. Readers will come to know his love story with his wife and the bloodhound who was a huge piece of his heart. But most of all, they will come to know a man who is trying to live in hope, to live with his past but still know that he's "going to be okay." The writing is easy and accessible, doled out in vignettes, like sitting on a front porch swing listening to a man tell you all about himself. The first half of the book, when he is still a child, is a bit more engaging than the second half, where he struggles to get out of his own way. And his story of becoming Sean of the South is not as fully written as the earlier stories, perhaps because his avid fans already know who he is. Over all this is a good read for people who like memoirs, who like southern storytelling, who want a positive story about overcoming a sad and hard past, or who want an uplifting story right about now.