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My Ruby Slippers: The Road Back to Kansas
by
Tracy Seeley (Goodreads Author)
Sure, there’s no place like home—but what if you can’t really pinpoint where home is? By the time she was nine, Tracy Seeley had lived in seven towns and thirteen different houses. Her father’s dreams of movie stardom, stoked by a series of affairs, kept the family on edge, and on the move, until he up and left. Thirty years later, settled in what seems like a charmed life...more
Paperback, 208 pages
Published
March 1st 2011
by Bison Books
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A story of discovery--that our roots go deep no matter where we land in the world. As someone living just 30 miles from where I grew up in Minnesota, I appreciated this elegy to a quiet, rural place. What happens when we go back to the place of our youth many years later? What will that world look like through fresh, mature eyes? Seeley's journey provides answers in insightful, literary ways.
I appreciated the portions of the book that detail Seeley's perspective and personal journey. I enjoyed i...more
I appreciated the portions of the book that detail Seeley's perspective and personal journey. I enjoyed i...more
The Road Back to Kansas
By Tracy Seeley
Tracy Seeley knows the importance of home and of knowing where it is. As a child, her family moved often. “Home” was thirteen houses in a mere nine years. Her father was more concerned about seeking stardom and validating himself. He moved himself and his family wherever he felt would further his whims. Ultimately, he left his family to fend for themselves. Tracy had no sense of stability; nor did she know what or where home truly was.
After struggling throug...more
By Tracy Seeley
Tracy Seeley knows the importance of home and of knowing where it is. As a child, her family moved often. “Home” was thirteen houses in a mere nine years. Her father was more concerned about seeking stardom and validating himself. He moved himself and his family wherever he felt would further his whims. Ultimately, he left his family to fend for themselves. Tracy had no sense of stability; nor did she know what or where home truly was.
After struggling throug...more
A Perfect Combination of Nostalgia and the Search for the Meaning of Home
Tracy Seeley is a professor of English at the University of San Francisco. That bit of information may seem like a sideline comment on a book so completely fascinating and thought provoking as MY RUBY SLIPPERS: THE ROAD BACK TO KANSAS, but it does help explain how this writer comes to her debut novel with such eloquent technique and style. While everyone who reads this book will enjoy the long road trip to a beginning, the...more
Tracy Seeley is a professor of English at the University of San Francisco. That bit of information may seem like a sideline comment on a book so completely fascinating and thought provoking as MY RUBY SLIPPERS: THE ROAD BACK TO KANSAS, but it does help explain how this writer comes to her debut novel with such eloquent technique and style. While everyone who reads this book will enjoy the long road trip to a beginning, the...more
The author is lyrical and passionate - and the writing is just outstanding. I found myself stopping to savor some sentences or paragraphs and reading them aloud, marveling at her ability to use words. In fact the opening paragraph gives you an excellent example of the quality of the writing. The story left a little bit to be desired. It is good on multiple levels - the story of recovery, and the story of re-discovery were both well done. But I found the ramblings into early history confusing. At...more
I love creative nonfiction, and when it's about my home state (and, briefly, my old hometown), that's even better. Seeley captures with magical prose so much about Kansas. My timing is perfect here because I read it days after visiting Lindsborg and spending time at the Land Institute. Thanks to Jan at Small World Gallery for recommending it! It's the closest to capturing much of my growing up in Kansas since Kathleen Norris's Dakota.
My Ruby Slippers is not only thought-provoking and inspirational, but also elegantly insightful and at times quite humorous. I found myself sitting along side the author and taking in the sights of her journey back to Kansas; a journey to define space quickly became one of self-discovery and finding one's roots. Seeley has such a profound and charismatic writing style that quickly engages the reader with anticipation for more. I truly enjoyed this memoir and found myself on my own journey of sel...more
Seeley writes this love story to Kansas. A cross between a heartfelt memoir and the language of an artistic novel, this book confused me and didn't leave me intrigued for the next page. A fan of the memoir genre, I wasn't captured by this book.
Bouncing between the present and her past memories, I couldn't follow her through her journey to find her center. I wanted to be swept away by the stories of the prairie and fall in love with the Kansas she was rediscovering, but I couldn't find myself bes...more
Bouncing between the present and her past memories, I couldn't follow her through her journey to find her center. I wanted to be swept away by the stories of the prairie and fall in love with the Kansas she was rediscovering, but I couldn't find myself bes...more
I must read this book! Like now!
I wrote the above sentence when I first heard of this book, and added it to my "to be read" shelf. Maybe because I was so excited about this book, I was equally so let down. It is not at all what I expected.
Of course if you are interested in the history of Kansas, you might love it. I was expecting more of a Glass Castle type of story, but this was not that at all. I thought I would find a kindred spirit with all the moving the author did, but I just couldn't con...more
I wrote the above sentence when I first heard of this book, and added it to my "to be read" shelf. Maybe because I was so excited about this book, I was equally so let down. It is not at all what I expected.
Of course if you are interested in the history of Kansas, you might love it. I was expecting more of a Glass Castle type of story, but this was not that at all. I thought I would find a kindred spirit with all the moving the author did, but I just couldn't con...more
A very thoughtful and introspective meditation on place and life. It reminded me of Kathleen Norris' "Dakota: A Spiritual Geography." Unlike Norris Seeley is confronting her own mortality and is more peripatetic. She fled Kansas as a teenager but now finds solace there while calling San Francisco home and also living in Los Angeles. I travel to Kansas at least twice a year and have visited many of the places she cites in her book. I too am drawn to Kansas much as she is but for different reasons...more
A
It was interesting in the fact it was partially about Kansas and I could picture the places she had been, but it was wordy in places
A terrific memoir about place, and our relationship with place. Beautiful, thoughtful narrative.
May 19, 2013
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Tracy Seeley is a nonfiction writer, professor at the University of San Francisco, and organic gardener. She grew up in Kansas and escaped at seventeen, only to be drawn back decades later to write about it. Her book MY RUBY SLIPPERS: THE ROAD BACK TO KANSAS tells the tale of her falling in love with the state she thought she'd left behind. A lyric exploration of place and displacement, geographic...more
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