We Are All Welcome Here: A Novel by
Elizabeth Berg
Pushing The Limits: An Inspirational Tale...
Elizabeth Berg, bestselling author of The Art of Mending and The Year of
Pleasures, has a rare talent for revealing her characters’ hearts and minds
in a manner that makes us empathize completely. Her new novel, We Are
All Welcome Here, features three women, each struggling against
overwhelming odds for her own kind of freedom.
It is the summer of 1964. In Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis’s birth,
tensions are mounting over civil-rights demonstrations occurring ever more
frequently–and violently–across the state. But in Paige Dunn’s small,
ramshackle house, there are more immediate concerns. Challenged by the
effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy,
Paige is nonetheless determined to live as normal a life as possible and to

raise her daughter, Diana, in the way she sees fit–with the support of her
tough-talking black caregiver, Peacie.
Diana is trying in her own fashion to live a normal life. As a fourteen-year-
old, she wants to make money for clothes and magazines, to slough off the
authority of her mother and Peacie, to figure out the puzzle that is boys,
and to escape the oppressiveness she sees everywhere in her small town.
What she can never escape, however, is the way her life is markedly
different from others’. Nor can she escape her ongoing responsibility to
assist in caring for her mother. Paige Dunn is attractive, charming,
intelligent, and lively, but her needs are great–and relentless.
As the summer unfolds, hate and adversity will visit this modest home.
Despite the difficulties thrust upon them, each of the women will find her
own path to independence, understanding, and peace. And Diana’s
mother, so mightily compromised, will end up giving her daughter an
extraordinary gift few parents could match.
Personal Review: We Are All Welcome Here: A Novel by
Elizabeth Berg
It is 1964, in Tupelo, Mississippi, and a young mother, Paige Dunn -
paralyzed by polio while pregnant with her daughter Diana - lives a life
limited by her condition and as a single mother. But because of her inner
strength and determination, she is raising her daughter, now entering her
teens. Paige's in-home help (she is a quadriplegic) consists of a young
black woman (Peacie) who comes in the daytime, and another helper who
comes for part of each night.
Against this backdrop, Peacie and her husband LaRue, also constrained
by their own limitations of race during a time of segregation, are equally
determined to push for a life beyond its limitations. While Peacie cares for
Paige, LaRue decides to help with the voter registration cause, involving
himself in protest marches and placing himself at risk.
Gradually, things begin to unravel for these characters: LaRue is arrested,
Peacie bails him out with money loaned by Paige - who can ill afford it -
and someone has called to report the family to social services for having
"insufficient help" in the home. Peacie's occasional absences have taken
a toll.
Throughout the dire series of events that lead to what might seem a
hopeless situation, Paige maintains her faith and hope, determined to find
the help she needs so that she can finish her job parenting her daughter.

What unexpected events turn this disaster on end? And will Diana's father
be of assistance? Will Peacie return in her role as caretaker? Or will
Paige have to finally give in to her limitations?
Just when they are all about to give up, an unexpected visitor appears -
someone who owes Paige a debt of gratitude for something that occurred
many years before - and their lives are all blessedly improved.
An inspirational story based on true events that have been fictionalized,
We Are All Welcome Here: A Novel sends a message of hope to all those
who have almost given up on the circumstances that seemingly control
their lives.
Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of: Miles to Go, etc.
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