Resourceful women struggling to overcome adversity are at the core of some of author Charlene Wexler’s most popular books. Her newest one, Farewell to South Shore, published in 2024 by Speaking Volumes, is no exception.
“Farewell to South Shore taps into and articulates a woman’s emotions related to dealing with a changing society, particularly its expectations of women,” Wexler explained.
In Farewell to South Shore, she introduces readers to 15-year-old Sherrie, who is growing up in a close-knit Jewish family in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The building in which Sherrie lives is occupied by family with Old World values, in Chicago’s South Shore community. Her relatives are loud, argumentative, and quirky, but they are also loving and solve problems with that love — and great food.
As the 1960s progress, Sherrie and her family increasingly encounter modern day problems and situations, including their changing neighborhood, homosexuality, unplanned pregnancy and abortion, family secrets, domestic abuse, divorce, single motherhood, women’s rights, and romance in middle age.
Sherrie becomes the first girl in the family to go to college, and then to law school. She meets the man of her dreams, marries him, and leaves her career as an attorney behind. But her husband turns out to have old-fashioned patriarchal ideas of his own. Eventually they divorce, leaving her a single mother of two. Informed by all of her life experiences, Sherrie feels compelled to re-establish her legal career as an attorney fighting for Roe v. Wade and equal rights, and helping abused women. As the 2000s dawn, Sherrie pivots toward female financial empowerment, as she embarks on a new, modern romance.
A story of tragedies and triumphs to which every reader can relate, Farewell to South Shore not only refers to departure from a place, but also serves as a metaphor for leaving a time and culture that will never exist again.
“The book inspires perseverance and determination to help take charge of one’s own life in a rapidly changing world,” Wexler added. “A world vastly different from the idyllic South Shore of the main character’s youth.”
In July 2025, Farewell to South Shore won an international Apex Award of Excellence from Communications Concepts, a writing and communications think tank based in Williamsburg, VA.
Farewell to South Shore is available as an e-book from:
Farewell to South Shore is available as a paperback from:
- Amazon.com
- BarnesAndNoble.com
- Speaking Volumes
- Blackwell’s
- Boekenportaal
- Books A Million
- Booktopia
- CeDe.ch
- Magers & Quinn
- Mighty Ape
- Papeterie Trychlepark
- Rakuten Kobo
- Takealot.com
- Walmart
Reviews:
- Speaking Volumes
- Reviewer Anthony Avina website
- Barnes & Noble
- Congregation Beth Shalom
- Reviewer Katrina Robinson website
- San Diego Jewish World web website
- Spertus Institute
Awards:
- Apex Award of Excellence, Communications Concepts, 2025
- Named #11 in Suburban Fiction, Amazon.com, June 18, 2024
- Named #21 in Suburban Fiction, Amazon.com, July 19, 2024
- Four Seasons Book Award Fall Finalist, 2024
- Global Book Award, Bronze, Contemporary Fiction category, 2024
Charlene Wexler 
