Memoirs

Epilogue by Anne Roiphe. 2008,HarperCollins. 214pp Biography
It's not easy being a widow after forty years of marriage. Some time after her husband's death Roiphe's daughters take out an ad in a literary magazine to ease her back into the "dating" scene. In this book, she muses on families, loneliness, grief, and other topics familiar to widows. This is certainly not a "how to cope with grief" book, but many of the emotions will be familiar to widows.

Outside Passage:A Memoir of an Alaskan Childhood by Julia Scully. 1998,Random. 219 pp. Biography
Julia's father committed suicide when she was seven. Her mother, a spunky immigrant from Poland, leaves Julia and her sister in an orphanage, and goes to Alaska to find work during the Great Depression. Four years later the family gets back together in Alaska. These are Julia's remembrances of growing up during the war years primarily in Alaska. The stories are a mixture of admiration and puzzlement for her mother's behavior. Most of the time they are told from the viewpoint of a young girl trying to make sense of the world.

The Summer of Ordinary Ways by Nicole Lea Helget. 2005, Borealis. 182 pp. Biography
Helget chronicles her life growing up the oldest in a family of six girls in rural Minnesota in the 1980s. Her father had played a couple seasons of major league baseball, before washing out and coming home to farm. The book bounces back and forth in time, but she clearly labels the time periods. For the people who like books of dysfunctional families. If you enjoyed The Glass Castle or A Child Called It, you will probably enjoy this one.

After reading these three books, I can see that it will be pointless for me to write the story of my childhood. My family, by these accounts, was entirely too happy and normal. We may not have had a lot materially, but we did have family (sometimes, even when we didn't particularly want or think we needed it). Guess I'll just have to write something else.