All New People

by Anne Lamott

With generosity, humor, and pathos, Anne Lamott takes on the barrage of dislocating changes that shook the Sixties. Leading us through the wake of these changes is Nanny Goodman, one small girl living in Marin County, California. A half-adult child among often childish adults, Nanny grows up with two spectacularly odd parents: a writer father and a mother who is a constant source of material. As Nanny moves into her adolescence, so, it seems, does America. While grappling with her own coming-of-age, Nanny witnesses an entire culture's descent into drugs, the mass exodus of fathers from her town, and rapid real-estate and technological development that foreshadow a drastically different future. In All New People, Anne Lamott works a special magic, transforming failure into forgiveness and illuminating the power of love to redeem us.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Coming Of Age, Literary Fiction, Book Club, Adult Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Anne Lamott is an author of several novels and works of non-fiction. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, her non-fiction works are largely autobiographical, with strong doses of self-deprecating humor and covering such subjects as alcoholism, single motherhood, and Christianity. She appeals to her fans because of her sense of humor, her deeply felt insights, and her outspoken views on topics such as her left-of-center politics and her unconventional Christian faith. She is a graduate of Drew College Preparatory School in San Francisco, California. Her father, Kenneth Lamott, was also a writer and was the basis of her first novel Hard Laughter.

Lamott's life is documented in Freida Lee Mock's 1999 documentary Bird by Bird: A Film Portrait of Writer Anne Lamott.

Reviews

[moonglow · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first started this book - during the first chapter or two, I thought I had made a mistake. Two mistakes, rather. The first mistake I thought I had made was choosing this book to read. Second, I thought I had prematurely declared my love for Anne Lamott after having only read Bird by Bird and watched her speak in a bunch of YouTube videos.

I wasn't immediately pulled into the story. There is no clearly defined plot. The book is more of an exploration of characters, of snippets of memories of these characters' lives.

By the third chapter, I was hooked. Anne Lamott's writing is lovely. Her descriptions of the town that she lived in as a child (somewhere around San Francisco) were so lush. My heart broke reading about the changes that took place in the town as she grew up - strips of condominiums and expensive homes replacing pear trees and the dark green of the mountains.

The characters are beautifully painted. The main character is Nan (or Nanny), who has a whole lot in common with what I know of Anne Lamott's life. I loved Nan's mother, Marie, who had one really large nostril and always told people in difficult times to rest in the solution, God being the solution. Each of the characters has his or her own unique charm, each one so real and well-developed. And Anne Lamott's humor is wonderful.

I had a great time being in this book. If you're into a strong plot and lots of action, I wouldn't recommend the book. If you appreciate rich descriptions of people and places, characters that will stay with you for a while, and subtle stories of the ups and downs of people's lives, then I would highly recommend this book.

I do love Anne Lamott.

[Meen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just lovely.

Simple and sweet and real. I want to read more of her stuff now. I love when just out of nowhere in the middle of the narrative there's a phrase that just leaps out at you and you have to close the book and find a pen so you can either underline it and dog-ear the page or write it down in your reader's notebook (you all have those, right?) in the case of library books. It's just a beautiful combination of words that may not even have much to do with the sentiment of the surrounding paragraph... That happened several times with this book.

And I just love women's voices. I'm not saying that all women write differently from all men. It's just that most of them feel different to me, and I needed a woman's voice, a woman's story right about now. And while Nanny's story was sad and funny and typical and unique (like most all humans' stories), the thing that made me saddest was the description of all of the development (somewhere across from San Francisco on the Bay) that took place during Nanny's growing up. Where there were large working class communities and swamps and estuaries and wildlife and vast, unsettled rolling hills and lively railroad yards (just lots of places for a kid to go exploring and develop a sense of self connected to the land), there are now million dollar condos and all the swamp and estuaries got filled in and the railroad got pulled up and there are no more hillsides covered with wildflowers as far as the eye can see and certainly no more thriving working class neighborhoods. Poor Nature.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catching up…

I remember reading this many years ago. And now that it has been donated to my Little Free Library Shed, I have had the opportunity to re-visit it and bring my review to Goodreads.

This is a short novel about a woman named Nanny who is working with a psychologist via hypnosis. Nanny is dealing with some difficult suppressed issues from childhood that have caused her depression in adulthood that she is wanting to work through.

Although the story may seem like it could be uncomfortable, it actually is full of grace and humor and the power of love.

But there may be some triggers readers will want to be aware of because there is also a lot of pain, dysfunction, and addiction throughout these pages, too.

Still…‘All New People’ shows that life can be more powerful than death, and that laughter can transcend the darkest moments, and bring out the strength of the human spirit. That is a testament to Lamott’s ability to write about real people.

[Josh Barkey · Rating 4 out of 5]

It annoys me that this is titled "a novel." First, because the detail is too endlessly personal (and the protagonists name too obviously a derivative of the author's) for this to be anything other than memoiric. And second, because NOTHING HAPPENS. I mean, it's brilliantly written and jam-packed with nuggets of truth and wisdom, but it comes off as more a ramble on real life. I guess I've been too influenced of late by my reading of Robert McKee's "Story," in that I find myself less patient with anything that doesn't have arc and action. But that's the bonus of books, I guess - they don't HAVE to be as archetypal as films in order to hold our attention and teach us things.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pacing and overall content of the book deserves a two. However, I really did enjoy the author's style, realism and wit. In the end, I was left wanting as far as the plot goes. I needed more purpose to the story to keep me fully invested and interested.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

More like 2.4. I liked much of her writing style. She was very into using the 5 senses to describe things. Some of those descriptions were very lovely. My issue was more with the story. It didn't go anywhere. It skipped a whole bunch of time that I was interested in reading about. That would have been fine, except the ending didn't really have any closure. The title with the one reference to it in the middle sort of gave me a nail to hang the end on, but not really.

[Hollie Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I read this book and I'm brand new to GoodReads but it comes to mind when I think - wow, now that I'm here, what books should I review?
This book stays in my mind as one of the best books I have ever read. Though honestly I remember so little of it now other than that, as a writer, I was floored by the way she "showed" and never "told."
Ah! Silly me - I keep book journals - let's see what I wrote back in 2012...

I had thought to maybe go looking for Bird By Bird for a re-read and found this next to it so I picked it up. What wonderful writing and storytelling! It's not a story of much - just a girl and her family and friends in the early 60s. They live just over the bridge north of SF - can see all the sights. It's a bum-duck little town filled with poor working folks. Sausilito before rich folks adopted it. By the end of the book - when she's a teen - the rich folks are moving in, tearing down the railroad yard and making strip malls. I marked many pages for lovely phrasing and thoughts. Pg 5 - "I have told most of my stories so many times that it has become a way of forgetting." Pg 10 - "Ignorance is curable, stupidity is forever." I think I'll just have to keep the book with the post-its in it because most of the imagery is out of context and would make little sense here. In the story is her mother with a droopy eye and one nostril far too big, her writer father always struggling to make ends meet. They are liberals, active in the fight for what's right and at one point very disappointed not that JFK is President, but that he hasn't been all they had hoped (how like Obama and his rabid liberal supporters, I thought.) Her father's brother Ed - alcoholic, sometimes boorish, sometimes loveable, and his overweight wife Peg. Her mother's best friend Natalie with her beehive hair, capri pants and too much mascara. Casey, her brother, is a few years older than her and finds the hippie scene and smokes too much pot, gets arrested etc. When Ed is lamenting how he'd hurt two women in his life he muses (paraphrased) – “everything seems like a crisis and we worry it all to death when it barely matters because in 100 years - all new people.” What a strangely comforting thought and therefore a great title. Excellent novel all around and Lamott is a superb writer, telling her story of boring everyday life with small details in a perfect example of - show don't tell.

[Phyllis · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I read this book I ached with nostalgia for my old hometown before the town voted to build the industrial park and the two malls. We used to live off a country road where you had to wait if you were unlucky enough to drive through when the farmer was crossing his cows. Now the road has been widened and the traffic sped up accordingly. I even had a drunk Uncle Ed and an older brother. The author captured the sense that the world was changing much too fast and that change was causing huge disruptions in people's lives. Divorce was a huge black cloud that hovered over our parents. I identified with the female narrator and her coming of age in the sixties. The quote her father said to her on which the title of the book is based I heard from a friend a few years ago when I was taking myself and my problems too seriously. "...why do we make it all seem like a crisis, over and over again? Why do we worry it all to death, like dogs with socks or chew-toys? Look at it this way, ...in a hundred years? All new people." The things we struggle with, the people we care about, all gone, but does the same type of struggle or person occur again in 100 years? Can anyone learn from our experience? And how? Through our stories, our fiction? Is this why history repeats itself? Every 100 years all new people who do the same things and make the same mistakes as the previous 100 people?

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book, but I didn't like it as much as the other books I've read by Lamott.

The novel begins with Nan Goodman coming back to her hometown after the death of her father and her painful divorce. She goes to see a hypnotist who has her think back through all of the painful and shameful moments of her life, back to her earliest memories. Then, he has her step into each scene as an adult and comfort herself as a child. This helps her to view the events of her life not just through a child's eyes, but her own adult eyes, and forgive herself and help herself.

The novel melts into telling Nan's story of growing up. It is hard, painful, and real. I appreciated Lamott's honesty, but the book seemed to maintain a quiet depression throughout the book that just never lifted. It had a nice premise, good writing, and a light touch, but the story stagnated.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Occasionally overwritten, when compared with Rosie, but overall some very good insights into the human condition and the relationship between family members. What keeps her from being too gothic or baroque is her overall fondness for her off-kilter characters; she never demeans or insults them for their flaws and indeed emphasizes their essential humanity. You can see the importance of her spiritual faith in her work overall, not just this novel, for she clearly views humans as flawed but deserving of love and forgiveness.

[Rita Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my first Anne Lamott book. I want to read more of her stuff, primarily because I was underwhelmed by this book. To me, there was not much of a story line. I thought many of her characters and their situations were somewhat stereotypical of the time period. I considered not finishing it, but I finished it primarily because of her reputation. It was like I kept thinking, "There must be more to this. I will just keep reading and it all will go somewhere." But I feel like it didn't really go anywhere.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

All New People reads like an exaggerated memoir. I liked Anne Lamont’s Bird by Bird, but would not rank this book as highly. It’s not quite a novel, more a package of various slices of life, like a sampler of sandwich meat.

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

She grew up in a small town in Northern California near San Francisco and returned there as a divorced adult. It doesn't take long until the sights, sounds, and scents take Nanny Goodman back to her childhood, primarily in the summer of 1966, the year before the summer of love.

Written by Anne Lamott, this is the story of 11-year-old Nanny, a clever and spirited girl who lives in a small home on the beach with her eccentric parents and brother, Casey, who is 13. It's a rough summer. As Nanny is trying to figure out who she is and who her real friends are, her family is imploding. Her father is an underemployed writer (so money is tight), her mother is a bleeding-heart liberal and religious fanatic prone to depression, and her brother is experimenting with drugs while hanging out with a rough crowd. Meanwhile her mother's best friend, Natalie, and her Uncle Ed have been doing unspeakable things. Adding to the dysfunction many of the town's fathers are leaving their families, finding new wives and having new babies. What is going on? In trying to figure out who she is and her place in the world, Nanny looks to the adults around her, but she seems more grown up than they do as they struggle with their pain, disappointments, and addictions.

If you were born in the mid-1950s and so were a child/teenager in the 1960s, this book will especially resonate with you. It is a character-driven book without much of a plot, but the characters are so strong and unconventional that it totally kept my interest.

This novel is filled with joy, as well as darkness, and will transport you to another time and place.

[elsa ericksen · Rating 4 out of 5]

first anne lamot and not sure it was what i was expecting but still good! a short novel where nothing much happens, just life. worth the read i think

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anything by Anne Lamott always gets 5 stars (from me, anyway).

[Nancy Schalk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not one of my favorite books by Lamott, but she remains a favorite author. I could picture the town and era but the characters had a lot of extreme situations happening.

[Stephanie]

ALL NEW PEOPLE: I Didn’t Get It
A girl travels through her childhood and adolescence in 1970s Marin County
http://fangswandsandfairydust.com/201...


A fictive memoir told partly in sketches during hypnosis, I just didn’t get how it made a novel. Is it that she comes to a peace, of sorts, with her childhood? The author is a little too preoccupied with the size of Nanny’s mother’s nostril of all things. The story progresses through a tale of her uncle’s marriage, her own search to belong to a group in adolescence to the point that she makes unsavory friends, the sexual revolution causing marital upheaval in her parent’s set in California. There’s some religion, but it’s not proselytizing, more the charafcter’s mother’s experience. I guess it is similar to how we recall our childhood and adolescence.

But it’s a floating narrative and it failed to tread water with me. I got through it, and tried to do a second listen. But I could not. I also had to skip several minutes when a pet had a tragic incident and I opted to skip over it. It’s not that the pet was abused or mistreated — I just can’t handle scenes like that (of course, I don’t know what happened in the part I skipped). Maybe the key the whole book was in those 10 minutes and I missed it. Maybe.

The narration is fine, Vacker can sound like I would imagine a drifty-dreamy, sometimes poor, 1960s-1970s California girl from Marin County.

Maybe it’s me and I just wasn’t deep enough to appreciate it. I Maybe it was those tn minutes I skipped. It’s a contemporary classic being reissued in audio, so it is entirely possible your experience will be better than mine was.

[Mary Novaria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an early novel (1989) of Anne Lamott's and it is a complete joy. They always say to write what you know and the reader gets the sense that, although this is a work of fiction, Lamott has an extreme empathy for Nanny--likely born of personal experience.

Funny, heartbreaking and heart warming, young Nanny Goodman grows up in the sixties across the bay from San Francisco amidst quirky adults with some pretty grown up problems: alcholism, depression, separation, infidelity, unplanned pregnancy, and a general discontent with life. There's not much opportunity for childhood innocence here as Nanny's brother turns to drugs and the adults in her life become too consumed with their own pain and drama to protect her from the harsh realities of life. Still, at the core, Nanny knows she is loved despite living eye-high in dysfunction. Really, isn't that the most important thing for a girl to know?

I am a huge Anne Lamott fan. I adore everything she's written, but I love some more than others. I have always thought her honest, self-effacing, memoirs (Operating Instructions, Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, Plan B and Grace Eventually) and are stronger (because they are so brutally honest?) than her fiction. All New People is the exception. I think it's her best novel.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I never finished this book. I should have; it was supposed to be a short/quick read. But I just couldn't get into it, or see the direction it was going. Certain parts were written very well, almost poetic. So I got some enjoyment out of it. Maybe I'll finish it one day, but think I will need to be sitting upright at a desk to concentrate.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a lot of people, I've read far more of Anne Lamott's nonfiction than her fiction. On the fiction front, I've read the three "Rosie" novels, all of which I liked, none of which I loved as much as I loved Bird by Bird or Operating Instructions or even the book review column she used to write for Mademoiselle, which was how I was first introduced to her writing. I tried to get a copy of All New People way back then, but it was out of print until her nonfiction took off, at which point her earlier novels all became available again. And now I have finally read this one.

This novel is very different from the "Rosie" novels. For one thing, it's a lot funnier. Also a lot sadder. It also seems to be more directly based on Lamott's life--I recognized some of the spiritual ideas and some of the action from Bird by Bird and her later writings on faith. It has nothing even remotely resembling a conventional plot; it's more like a memoir, and a snapshot of the Bay Area in the sixties. I might recommend this to fans who've had trouble getting into her fiction in the past--the voice in this one is unmistakeably Anne Lamott's.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore this quirky, wise, early novel from Anne Lamott. Like much of her fiction, a child is the pivotal center and the oracle of true observation. Through Nanny Goodman's eyes we see flawed, humorous, wise, and courageous adults plow through a marginal life in the turbulent 1960's. This marvelous story is "Secret Life of Bees", meets "To Kill A Mockingbird" meets "Charms for the Easy Life**", but 100% Lamott.

This book is one of the treasures in my library -- I loved it so much I tracked down a hardback first edition. You will love it too. You will want to sway and sing and stomp your feet during the unforgettable church scenes. You will laugh out loud at least fourteen times and, when you are feeling down and out, you will remember Natalie's advice to Nanny's mother: "...you had to get out of the pit as soon as you could...as soon as you noticed you'd gone into it, otherwise you'd start furnishing it. I mean, since it looked like you were going to live there forever, why not make it comfortable?" Mostly, you will want all your friends to read this wise and charming book too.

**If you haven't read this gem by Kaye Gibbons, your reading life is incomplete.

[Cynthia Archer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say that I love Anne Lamott's way of looking at the world and would read anything she writes. I have read much of her non-fiction books, and I really looked forward to reading this fictional story. It, as with everything she writes, it is filled with beautiful words and feelings that seemed genuine and strong. It is not a plot driven story, but focuses rather on the characters, which she portrays as struggling and effected by the era in which the book takes place. The 60's were a changing time for everyone. Anne captures many of these issues as she tells the story of Nannie who is growing up in a progressive, but still traditional family. I suspect that there are more than a few biographical parallels with the author's life and this young woman's. I found the book to be a very good read. If you want a plot-driven tale, this book may not be for you. If you like reading about people who could be real with real life problems and challenges, I recommend you give All New People a try.

[Bobbe · Rating 5 out of 5]

In general, I love Anne Lamott. This is an older book, and at first I wasn't sure this one was going to do much for me. That changed. I grew up in the bay area in the late 60's. I could relate to the setting and the many changes taking place. And periodically, her words just made me laugh. "I had to sleep with my hair in plastic curlers every night so that it would be straight in the morning. It was like sleeping on a pillowcase full of roller skates." Other times, I was deeply touched: "Your mother can't accept that Casey is just growing up. You know her, she likes to fix us all. Like her blood is epoxy. That's why she married me, doll! Boy, was I a real fixer-upper. And most of the people who come to your mother want to be fixed, and so we let her fix us. But Casey doesn't even think he's broken. And maybe he isn't, and anyway Nanny, don't you think to be human IS to be broken?" And talking about the things we stress about: "'Look at it this way,' he said to me. 'In a hundred years? --All new people.'" A beautiful, short read.

[Dawn Lennon · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much pathos, such a keen portrayal of the the people, times and its issues, and writing well-crafted...such was this book for me. I so loved Lamott's Bird by Bird, that it would have been a task for this novel to live up to my expectations. For all the dysfunction, confusion, and sadness faced by her characters here, she makes a concerted effort to lift the reader up though vivid descriptions of the life, color, and beauty that Nature affords us all, even as we struggle.

Here is a book of essentially character profiles against thae backdrop of the times. It reminds us that as we move through our lives there are the people who we once were and who surrounded us only to be replaced by the new people we often become and find to complete the cycles of our lives.

It was a nice read albeit a sad one, despite her best efforts to inject the humorous. Perhaps the book hit too close to home for me.

[Les · Rating 2 out of 5]

My Original Notes (1998):

Fair to good. I finished it, so it wasn't that bad. It just wasn't very interesting. I only just finished it last night, but can barely remember the names of the characters. Basically, a story about a young girl (Nanny Goodman) and her life as a child. The struggles between her parents. Her uncle's illegitimate daughter. Divorce. Drugs. Puberty. Centered in Marin County, California. Almost on the verge of being boring.

My Current Thoughts:

Prior to reading All New People, I had only read one other book by Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird). I have since read Traveling Mercies and Operating Instructions, which along with Bird by Bird are both nonfiction. I have mixed feelings about Lamott's abrasive tone, but am drawn to her books and her self-deprecating sense of humor.

[fleegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is pretty wonderful. The characters are so real. And she writes so well. There's pain and humour and wonderful, wonderful sentences. I love great sentences. An example:

"I am living once again in the town where I grew up, having returned here several weeks ago in a state of dull torment for which the Germans probably have a word."

Another exemplo:

"In a way I've never quite understood, the veil tore an inch for me that day, like it does every so often, when in the midst of all that is mundane and day-to-day, there's suddenly a tiny tear in the veil, and you see the bigger and brighter thing, and then the veil repairs itself, and the day goes on as before."

The book is filled with wonderful sentences.

[Kricket · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just the Lamott I needed. I can’t believe I let so much time go by before reading this, but maybe I knew all along that I should save a couple of her novels for this era when all she is publishing is the same cute essays over and over and over (see my review of Grace Eventually.)

This one is a slow moving, quiet, luscious reflection on the main character (Nanny, as always, layered with Annie) and her growing up years in Marin County during the sixties. There are so many familiar aspects of this story- the setting overlaps with all of Anne’s own memoir pieces, with Hard Laughter, with Blue Shoe- and Nanny has wild blond hair- but at the same time, it’s new, with a new family and friends. As always, I laughed my arse off at Anne’s wry metaphors. Beautiful. Beautiful.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love a lot of Anne Lamott's descriptions of people, and in this book many of the descriptions are coming from a pre-teen girl, whose father smells "like a good clean goat." Very enjoyable. Always fun to read books that are set near somewhere I've lived, and this was no exception, giving an interesting picture of Marin in the 60's when gentrification was beginning to take place in a small railroad town. I got a bit of a scattered feeling as I was reading this one, having to go back a few pages to check on the timeline a few times; it may have been because I kept reading the book before taking naps, but I also think it may have been intended as a way to illustrate the unsettled and disconnected feelings of the narrator.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautifully written and deeply flawed novel. The problem here, I think, may be that Lamott has written and fictional memoir and is trapped in her own device. The lyrical and moving writing doesn't measure up to the plot. Did I say plot? While it is widely accepted that a literary novel needs not have a plot in the same sense that, say, a mystery does, it is also expected that there is some sense of mounting tension that warrants the ending of the book. This is rather like the first three quarters of a good book wherein the author found it either too boring or painful to continue to the end of the story. Still, there are some really glowing passages,as one would expect from this author.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't go into this book with great expectations - and therefore I wasn't all that surprised when it failed to live up to Traveling Mercies, Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, etc.

I wasn't surprised by the characters in this book - there's always a group of weepy women from Marin County, California, someone who attends a black presbyterian church, someone who plays tennis, someone with unruly hair, and there will be someone with a drinking problem. We've heard this story before....but I think I like it better when it's told first person rather than phrased as third person fiction.