A GIRL'S LIFE: Horses, Boys, Weddings, and Luck
Marianne Gingher, A GIRL'S LIFE: Horses, Boys, Weddings, and LuckIn an essay in the New York Times Book Review,
Michael Vincent Miller casually appealed for a memoir of childhood happiness and adult fulfillment. Gingher, director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, delivers on his request, extolling and sometimes sugarcoating the virtues of her North Carolina girlhood. From the beginning, as Gingher and her siblings embark on their summer trip to the grandparents' house, the cast of shiny, happy characters can do no wrong. Pies are always cooling on the kitchen windowsill, while kids entertain themselves trying on grandma's hats. Gingher's nostalgia for the 1950s and '60s yields some dreamy images, but her insistence that this was the last age of innocence rings false considering the political climate of the time and place. Without adult reflection on the context, she wistfully remembers the African-American maids employed by her family and white neighbors, and sighs, "This was the last era of affordable help for the middle class." When dark clouds encroach, they hover over other families; the bad tempers of other girls' fathers only highlight the goodness and pureness of her own. Potential land mines, such as when her mother discovers a Klansman's robe in the attic, are glossed over quickly and efficiently. Later in the book, Gingher's account of her own children is less confectionary and more grounded. Throughout, she writes fluidly and has a knack for detail, vividly capturing a child's-eye view. Readers who yearn for gentle, unconflicted memoir will treasure Gingher's work. B&w photos. (June)
closeDetailsReviewed on: 04/02/2001
Genre: Nonfiction
Hardcover - 304 pages - 978-0-7531-5219-5
Paperback - 304 pages - 978-0-7531-5220-1
In an essay in the
Reviewed on: 04/02/2001
Genre: Nonfiction
Hardcover - 304 pages - 978-0-7531-5219-5
Paperback - 304 pages - 978-0-7531-5220-1
