Review
HYPOCRITE IN A POUFFY WHITE DRESS: TALES OF GROWING UP GROOVY AND CLUELESS
by Susan Jane Gilman
Warner Books, 352 pp.
Reading chick lit can be an irritating experience. It’s often the same old story – scrappy bright girl is done wrong by an emotionally unavailable cad, about whom she moans endlessly to her devoted coterie of slightly eccentric and interestingly dressed confidantes over lots of drinks and cigs at the local bar. Scrappy bright girl gains confidence through work or travel or both, and as a result meets sensitive quirky man who understands her offbeat sensibility. They live mostly happily and quirkily ever after.
While there indeed is a lot of alcohol in this book, along with eccentric friends, several cads and a sensitive, quirky man, Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress thankfully goes well beyond these stock chick-lit props. The experiences chronicled in Gilman’s unabashed memoir include being the only Jewish angel in the annual school Christmas pageant, dealing with "white dorkiness" in a racially mixed New York neighbourhood, enduring her mother’s well-intentioned foray into transcendental meditation and macrobiotic food, shopping for a first bra while stoned, landing a job in the newsroom of The Jewish Weekly, and pretending to be a professional lesbian. Amid the laughs are sharp, poignant observations about growing up and finding a place in the world, without the saccharine clichés with which such ideas are often associated. Women may especially appreciate Susan’s burgeoning ideas about feminism in the 1970s and ’80s, but readers in general will enjoy her all-too-human attempts to make sense of the world.
Although the writing is occasionally self-conscious – sometimes it’s possible to imagine Gilman happily anticipating the reader’s reaction to her outrageous adventures – the stories are memorable, potent and well worth a read.
|
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.