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Hypocrite in a pouffy white dress
by Susan Jane Gilman
Honest and humorous Memoir
Susan Jane Gilman's ‘Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress’ is a new memoir I'd highly recommend adding to your collection. Told in amusing and often surprisingly keen ways, Gilman shares all her experiences: from first grade to her first job. Along the way, she's entertaining, enlightening, and often right on target.
This book, like any good story, all comes down to a matter of perspective. It's possible, for instance, that working in Congress isn't really that much different from going to high school-- the bell rings and people pour from one room in an exodus to their next room; cliques gossip about who said what to whom, what so-and-so did or didn't do; people try to pass notes without turning the entire room's attention towards themselves. It's all in how you look at it.
Gilman shares her life and how she's decided to look at it: the good and the bad, it's all here. She tells about her teenage years--and while her teenage angst seems a million times cooler than my own--it's something to which almost everyone can relate. Later, she writes about: feeling like an old maid at 30; finally meeting the right man and being unable to believe that it has happened; about weddings-- "wedding porn" she calls it-- and the crazy things you do for other people; and about her parents' divorce, and how badly it shook her.
All of her stories relate in some way. They're about: the people you depended on who let you down, and others who came through for you so unexpectedly; the things that youth overlooks that you want to go back and do over; how unbelievable it is when you finally say the right thing at the right time; and how hard the reality of living is - even if you are living your dreams.
The author's tales are both groovy and clueless. Like any real life, there's an amalgam of everyday horrors (getting picked on in school) and everyday humors (what you're really thinking when you're supposed to be meditating); of everlasting humor (Jewish mothers of lesbians trying to finagle a date for their daughters) and everlasting horrors (a pile of discarded eyeglasses at Auschwitz).
Gilman's humor and honesty make her tales compelling. Her writing is both universal (there's more than one quote you'll want to read to someone else) and individual (I've never met Mick Jagger, never wanted to, but there are still crushes I sigh to think about). Aside from wishing my memories were as clear as Gilman's, there was nothing about this book I didn't like. I hope you'll enjoy it as much.
Title: Hypocrite in a pouffy white dress
Author: Susan Jane Gilman
Publisher: Warner Books
ISBN: 0446679496
Review written by: Melissa McLaughlin
Reviewer's Rating:9.5
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
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