“This is her story. It could only happen in America.”
Those are the words from the book jacket of First Selectman Toni Boucher‘s new memoir, Stone Doll: An Immigrant’s Memoir from War-Torn Italy to The American Dream, which is expected to be released next month.
Boucher recently gave GOOD Morning Wilton the opportunity to preview the manuscript. The 21 chapters trace Boucher’s family’s journey from poverty and trauma in rural Italy to a new life in Connecticut — and ultimately, her own path to public service and American success.
Part family memoir and part political memoir, the book also contains Boucher’s observations and commentary on wide-ranging topics such as 9/11, Antisemitism, the so-called glass ceiling for working women, her views of other politicians and more. It’s even part cookbook, in which Boucher gives up a few secret family recipes.
Formative Experiences
Boucher does not shy away from revealing intimate details about her upbringing that influenced her values and ambitions.
One of Boucher’s earliest memories — crafting a rudimentary doll from a stone bundled in a dishcloth — is revealed in the book as a formative moment.
“That was my earliest recollection as a toddler on the farm,” Boucher said. “I picked up a stone and wrapped it in my mother’s dishcloth to play with it as a pretend doll. I found out later from some other families that were poor like us, that I wasn’t unique… that in the worst of times, that’s all they had, too.”
For Boucher, the stone doll became a lifelong metaphor for hardship and resilience. Stone Doll reveals her conviction that perseverance, education, and empathy are the foundations of both personal and community strength.
An Immigrant Story
Boucher says she set out to write the book to document and preserve her family’s story, but also with the hope of inspiring others. In the past, she found that sharing her story with others, particularly immigrants, was impactful.
“As I told my story, I saw tears coming down people’s faces,” she said. “Afterwards, they grabbed my hand. It resonated. It gave them hope. If they can see that someone who came from circumstances maybe even worse than theirs could make it, it means they can, too.”
Boucher writes openly in the book about the traumas her family members suffered, her own struggles as a non-English-speaking child in a new country, and how education proved to be key to her success.
“I couldn’t speak a word of English until I was in the fourth grade,” she said. “There was no English as a second language, nothing. I just sat in the back of the classroom until I learned.”
Boucher credits teachers with making a difference in her life when it came to finally learning to write and speak English.
“It was painful. I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “But they believed I could — and in the end, I was able to.”
“For me, education is the ultimate empowerment, and the most important aspect of our life’s journey,” she continued. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a one- or two-year-old or if you’re 100 years old, the potential for learning and changing is always there.”
Political And Cultural Commentary
The importance of education as a theme throughout the book is also seen in a chapter devoted to Boucher’s effort to fight Antisemitism. In that chapter, she connects her family’s wartime trauma with her later work in the Connecticut legislature supporting Holocaust education.
“It’s man’s inhumanity to man,” Boucher said. “It speaks of illiteracy, of a lack of understanding, and of the need to teach our children tolerance and empathy from the very beginning.”
“I believe that the more familiar you are with those different [from] you will breed an inclusiveness and a tolerance of other people,” she said.
The book touches on numerous other topics, including her experiences on 9/11. She also writes extensively about gender roles, “trying to have it all” as a working mother and “breaking the glass ceiling” as a woman in two fields — business and politics —still dominated by men.
In one of the more dramatic political chapters, Boucher recounts confronting then-Governor John Rowland and telling him to resign during the corruption scandal that ended his governorship — an act she said put her at odds with others in her own party, but reflected her conviction that “there were important principles at stake.”
Wilton is the setting for much of the book. She discusses the process of building her dream home, her service on Wilton’s Board of Education and the fight over the proposed “Super 7” highway through the town, among other anecdotes she shares. However, the book ends with only a few short paragraphs about her current term as first selectman, which she says was “a chance to bring everything I had learned in the legislature, in business, and in life back to the community where I live and that I love.”
First Selectman As Author
Stone Doll is Boucher’s second book to be published this year. She also wrote The Husky Effect: How UConn is Creating the Entrepreneurs of the Future, which was released in March.
Her latest book release comes at a particularly challenging time for Boucher, whose leadership has come under fire for a series of missteps and crises at Town Hall, including turmoil in Wilton’s Finance Department, issues with the police station construction project, and more.
Boucher, who says she is proud of a long list of accomplishments she has overseen during her tenure, insists that the writing of her two books was substantially completed prior to her taking office in Wilton. She bristles at any suggestion that the books have been a distraction from her duties as first selectman.
“That is absolutely unfounded and wrong and insulting, quite frankly,” said Boucher, pointing to her long work days as first selectman. “I am there at the office every single day [and] on weekends… That’s the only thing I’m doing.”
The Wilton Library will host an Author Talk with Boucher about the book on Thursday, Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. Advance registration is requested.