Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

A Memoir of Learning to Believe You’re Gonna Be Okay

By: Sean Dietrich

Narrated by: Sean Dietrich

Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's Summary

From celebrated storyteller "Sean of the South" comes an unforgettable memoir of love, loss, the friction of family memories, and the unlikely hope that you're gonna be alright.

Sean Dietrich was 12 years old when he scattered his father's ashes from the mountain range. His father was a man who lived for baseball, a steel worker with a ready wink, who once scaled a 50-foot tree just to hang a tire swing for his son. He was also the stranger who tried to kidnap and kill Sean's mother before pulling the trigger on himself. He was a childhood hero, now reduced to a man in a box. 

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? is the story of what happens after the unthinkable, and the journey we all must make in finding the courage to stop the cycles of the past from laying claim to our future. 

Sean was a seventh-grade drop-out, a dishwasher then a construction worker to help his mother and sister scrape by, and a self-described "nobody with a sad story behind him." Yet he cannot deny the glimmers of life's goodness even amid its rough edges. Such goodness becomes even harder to deny when Sean meets the love of his life at a fried chicken church potluck, and harder still when his lifelong love of storytelling leads him to stages across the southeast, where he is known and loved as "Sean of the South." 

A story that will stay with you long after you finish listening, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? testifies to the strength that lives within us all to make our peace with the past and look to the future with renewed hope and wonder.

©2020 Sean Dietrich (P)2020 Zondervan

Best I’ve heard in long time!

After 5 years of listening to Audibles, this is the first time I’ve submitted a review. Where are more books like this one? I refused to listen at night in fear I’d miss something. Great author and reader. Thank you Sean of the South.

This made my Southern heart smile

Sean, thank you for being so raw, open, honest… And funny! If I didn’t know it was your life, I would definitely think it was fiction! You are indeed a great storyteller and I love the fact that you narrated the book as well… I hate when people try to fake southern accents in narrations! I believe the book is probably more impactful as an audiobook then if you read it… Hearing the tone in your voice and emotions made it even more powerful! Thank you for inviting us on your journey

Simply AMAZING!!

Having read the Sean of the South blog for a while, I finally got around to listening to Sean’s performance of this book. I laughed, I cried (REALLY cried), and finished the book in two days. Sean’s writing is just so real... no pretense. Just the simple things in life that really matter. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to get the rest of his books.

Beautiful honest and uplifting

I can’t recommend this book enough! Poignant without being sappy. Uplifting without being contrived. It feels like sitting on the front porch with Sean of the South while he tells you his story, tenderly and humorously and humbly.

Heartfelt and fulfilling

Excellent delivery of a story on one mans life, which is a story of so many lives.

Review titles are hard

When I say that I loved this book, that's just not doing it justice. I honestly can't even describe how deeply it touched me. It's a story of love, abuse, loss, depression, anger, healing, hope, and hard won peace. I actually laughed out loud sometimes. A few times tears would roll silently down my face and I struggled to not break down and sob. Sean's writing is descriptive in a way that lets you feel the breeze and smell the ocean air. He's self deprecating, and you can either imagine the people he talks about, or you realize that you don't have to imagine them, because you knew someone just like them. I hope that this book was healing for him to write, because it certainly was healing to read. Not because I could directly relate to his childhood pain or the type of loss he experienced, but because I think in some way everyone can relate to love, loss, and the struggle to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The best book I have ever listen to on audible

And I have been a member for over 8 years! Sean Dietrich’s narrates his own story and this is the way it should be. After each short chapter I want to cry not only because his words reach way down inside of me and I become involved in his life but because I am nearing the end of the book, and I do not want it to end! An Amazing story teller and author

Every minute listening was a joy

An inspiring, sobering, gut-wrenching, and ultimately uplifting memoir. This book was my introduction to Sean Dietrich, and I can now say I’m a fan. His writing makes me feel, and that is the goal of writing.

More wonderful, funny & touching as ever!

We enjoyed hearing Sean’s honest, soothing voice recount the sad, challenging stories of his life with the deepest honesty about the inner turmoils surrounding the loss of his father. His brutal life finds clarity as he rises from self-consciousness to a man admired for his humor and tenderness. As in his daily blogs, he makes us marvel and appreciate the mundane things in life with a keenness like no other. He is a joy to hear and to get a glimpse behind the mind of this gifted man.

Just ok

I enjoyed having the author read this book. It is a story of a boy who has a hard life and how he comes to terms with this.