Just Willa by Helen Sheehy

Just Willa is a family chronicle of rare beauty—more than reminiscent of Willa Cather in capturing the regional flavors of America—stretching over a span of decades through an intimate focus on the life of one woman. In it, Helen Sheehy gives us a character of indomitable spirit who fuels and anchors her family with love and bravery.

We meet Willa Hardesty in 1964, while she’s burning trash in a barrel and thinking “this is hell.” Angry and frustrated, she finds some items she had long forgotten, and remembers that she had once been happy. In the ensuing chapters Willa’s life unfolds like a tapestry, beginning in 1927 when she’s eleven, about to accompany her mother on a train ride from Oklahoma to Missouri.

Just Willa shows us a world filled with people and struggles both realistic and relatable—a world that is 

beautiful, despite its hardships.

Release Date: April 13, 2025

Praise for Just Willa

“As clear as a prairie morning, unsparing and true, Just Willa is deeply moving yet unsentimental in the great American vein.  I loved it.”

—Richard Thomas, Actor

“In Just Willa, Helen Sheehy writes about an unsung unknown woman, a tough, hard-working, driven farm woman, expert at birthing babies, survival, and when necessary, kicking ass. In this huge story of one woman’s life, Sheehy has written a page-turner.  All fiction and all true.”

—Constance Congdon, Playwright and Poet

“Just Willa is just perfect. It is a vivid, sprawling family chronicle with an indomitable character at its center. Just Willa is destined to be an American classic because of its luminous prose and its sense of adventure.”

—Andre Bishop, Producing Artistic Director, Lincoln Center Theater

“Helen Sheehy’s masterful prose immerses you in Willa Hardesty’s world with such rich detail and emotional depth that you feel the dust of the Oklahoma plains and the quiet strength it takes to hold a family together. It’s a powerful reminder that even the women who shape our lives can hold truths we only come to understand with time. This book is for anyone who has ever known their mother—or thought they did.”

—Michael Sucsy, Emmy-winning Writer/Director of Grey Gardens