Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Sarah Jane Gilman

Mer A strikes again. Woe is me when I've gone through the pile she gave me. This was a memoir about a girl who grows up in a mixed-race neighborhood in New York City during the 1970s with hippie parents. It follows her from some of her earliest memories until her marriage in her early thirties. Disclosure: she went to Brown, like me, so I'm predisposed to like her. See also Caroline Knapp.

As she says in the preface, "I've written this book...because so many of the stories women are currently telling are all about getting a man...while a few stories do involve a boy, a bra, and a booty call, mostly their focus is elsewhere--on other passions and delusions that we all experience in one form or another."

And she succeeds at this. Her stories about growing up are about her interactions with her surroundings, and about the often-hilarious mishaps and misunderstandings that pepper everyone's childhood. About two-thirds of the way through the book, the tone changes from quaint growing-up stories to more of an adult style, which tells the reader about her progression into adulthood. I was never too impressed with her writing style, but I was interested to find out what was going to happen to her; it was more like reading a friend's email than a proper book, but with good grammar and punctuation.

I probably related the most to her description of her expectations around a high school dance. She writes about the iconic story of an unpopular girl with a chance to become well-liked:

"But then, we see montage shots of the dork in training--jogging, sweating, getting a makeover, holding up outfits in front of a department store mirrors while a bevy of salesclerks frown and shake their heads, then nod approvingly--until the Big Night. Inevitably, some school bully or bitch tries to sabotage her plans. And inevitably, last-minute obstacles pop up, theatening to jettison the whole evening. Maybe her limo breaks down. Maybe her father has a pulmonary embolism...[once she succeeds] her nemesis, meanwhile, ends up tearing her hair out in jealousy in the parking lot while a car veers past and platters mud all over her taffeta bubble dress.

The moral of these stories was never lost on me: namely that, with the right makeover, it was possible to reverse years of social ostracism in a single evening."

As an adult, her honesty and commentary on herself is no less present. She says of moving to Europe with her husband, "No doubt, plenty of Swiss citizens would be happy to engage me in lengthy discussions about "Totour and Tristan, the two wooden soldiers" who I'd studied ad nauseum in grade school, then listen raptly as I informed them that "whenever Pierra and Simone go to the market, they purchase a pair of shoes, a cauliflower and a small brown monkey, ... For all my schooling, I hadn't the foggiest idea how to say such basic things as "lightbulb," "extension cord," and "Can you please help me? My husband is stuck in the bathroom."

All told I enjoyed reading this book. The writing is nothing spectacular (although it is funny), but Gilman's honesty and ability to look critically at herself generally make up for that.