J. J. Leahy Shares Memoir

A descendant of one of Australia's earliest pastoralist, debut author Gerard Leahy shares the story of how their family came to be. Tracing his earliest roots and following it up generations until his father's, Leahy came to present the stories of "Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in Two Generations" (published by Xlibris AU).

This book, the first of two, starts with the transportation of an Irish convict, the author's great-grandfather to the Australian colonies in the 1827. It goes on to tell the stories of the generations down to his father's. His father, J.J. Leahy, started with a limited education and no money to go on and build up a large enterprise. The narrative then goes on to recount the reasons for the breakup of the empire.

"We can learn from this historical account of how the builder of vast rural enterprise resulted in the alienation of his family and ultimately the destruction of his empire," Leahy on his book's social relevance.

The nostalgic literary picture of life back then, on the other hand, will awaken waves of longing for people who once experienced that era and let the present generation have a peak to what was. "Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in Two Generations" is more than a family's record of its legacy; because it is also a chronicle of their triumphs and troubles that evoke relatable life struggles and victories within readers everywhere.

"Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in Two Generations"
By Gerard Leahy
Hardcover | 6 x 9in | 244 pages | ISBN 9781503506169
Softcover | 6 x 9in | 244 pages | ISBN 9781503506152
E-Book | 244 pages | ISBN 9781503506176
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author
Gerard Leahy was born in 1930, and grew up in Sydney and Bathurst in a family of nine children descended from an Irish convict. After being educated at St. Ignatius College (Riverview) in Sydney, he worked on several of his father's grazing properties in central and western New South Wales and near Mt. Isa in the far north of Queensland. He and his wife, Kathleen, moved to Tumbarumba in the NSW Snowy Mountains in 1952, where they ran a sheep and cattle grazing property until the early 1980s. Leahy and Kath moved to the Blue Mountains near Sydney in 1996.

Xlibris Publishing Australia, an Author Solutions, LLC imprint, is a self-publishing services provider dedicated to serving Australian authors. By focusing on the needs of creative writers and artists and adopting the latest print-on-demand publishing technology and strategies, we provide expert publishing services with direct and personal access to quality publication in hardcover, trade paperback, custom leather-bound and full-color formats. To date, Xlibris has helped to publish more than 60,000 titles.For more information, visit xlibrispublishing.com.au or call 1800 455 039 to receive a free publishing guide. Follow us @XlibrisAus on Twitter for the latest news.