Daughter’s Everett-based memoir of her father earns Kirkus star

Jeanne-Marie Osterman’s memoir honoring her father, a lifelong Everett resident, has earned the Kirkus star.

Osterman is the author of “Shellback,” a new book of poems that pay tribute to her dad, John D. Osterman, a father of three daughters and Navy World War II veteran. Jeanne-Marie is his youngest. He died in 2017 at 98.

The Kirkus Prize is a literary award of $50,000 bestowed annually by Kirkus Reviews, an American book review magazine founded in 1933.

Books that earn the Kirkus Star with publication dates between Nov. 1, 2020, and Oct. 31, 2021, are automatically nominated for the 2021 Kirkus Prize. Six finalists in each of three categories will be announced in September.

The Daily Herald in April published a story about Osterman’s book because she read from “Shellback” for National Poetry Month at Everett Public Library’s Everett Poetry Night.

Osterman, 68, is an Everett High School graduate who now lives in New York City. She told the Herald she’ll be back in Everett for her 50th high school reunion, which is scheduled for Sept. 18 at Everett’s Hotel Indigo — around the time she’ll find out if she’s a finalist for the Kirkus Prize.

In “Shellback,” Osterman remembers her father from her mid-century childhood to his death at 98 in 2017. The book is set in her Pacific Northwest hometown and the Pacific theater of World War II. Her poems speak of love, forgiveness, tragedy and grief.

“Shellback” — the title is slang for a veteran sailor — is a plainspoken portrait of a World War II naval combat veteran.

Osterman writes about the nostalgia of her childhood days trying “to be his boy,” followed by the nightmares her father witnessed during World War II. With a daughter’s devotion, she then writes about wishing to understand him and caring for him in his last years.

Also the author of the poetry collection “There’s a Hum,” Osterman’s poems have appeared in Borderlands, Cathexis Northwest, 45th Parallel Magazine, The Madison Review, Bluestem and SLAB. She was a finalist for the 2018 Joy Harjo Poetry Award and the 2017 Levis Prize in Poetry.