Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
American Girl: Scenes from a Small-Town Childhood
In this engaging and wonderfully nostalgic memoir, a popular New York Times columnist recalls the joys and tribulations of her childhood in small-town America in the prewar years of the 1930s. Advertising in Vanity Fair and Mademoiselle.
Paperback, 224 pages
Published
June 1st 1993
by Penguin Books
(first published 1992)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
91)
Mary Cantwell's style is remarkable for its ease of reading, its time- transporting ability, and its non-sentimental poignancy. This memoir of non-dysfunction (hooray!) of growing up in a small town in Rhode Island helps the reader to realize that a lot of small towns around the country are essentially the same.While she is a little bit older than I, her memories still resonated with me of households full of relatives, walking to school every day, finding refuge in books, white gloves, dates, ha...more
As all memoirs are, this was a rather self-indulgent little book. However, unlike others in this genre, this author gently and lovingly describes her girlhood in Bristol, RI. There are no stark revelations - just a hint of dark behavior among characters on the periphery of her young life. The time - wartime and post-war America - is captured in broad strokes, the setting for Cantwell's coming of age and "launching" from the small town she loves, yet knows she needs to escape in order to grow. Th...more
Stunning writing, I just had a semi-hard time getting through it at times (it can be dense; many details). Some very beautiful parts. I'll be reading Cantwell's next two memoirs.
Most enjoyable... less because of the subject as such than because Mary Cantwell is just such a durned good writer, and nails the misapprehensions inherent in childhood so well.
May 14, 2013
Shannon
marked it as to-read
Apr 27, 2013
Michael
added it
Apr 27, 2013
Hannah
marked it as to-read
Apr 26, 2013
Maggi
marked it as to-read
Apr 23, 2013
Susan
added it
Mar 15, 2013
Carrie Carlson
marked it as to-read
Mar 08, 2013
hilary
added it
Feb 18, 2013
Lynn
marked it as to-read
Feb 22, 2013
Anne Zielinsk
added it
Feb 01, 2013
Natalie
marked it as to-read
Jan 24, 2013
Becky
marked it as to-read
Dec 30, 2012
Marci
marked it as to-read
Nov 25, 2012
Kim
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
