From my Google feed on memoir writing, a review on the NPR blog by Linda Holmes of Quinn Cummings' Notes From The Underwire:
Have you ever had the experience of reading a single line and realizing that a book has just won you? That you and the book are now friends, you are on the same side, and you are taking the book with you everywhere until you finish it? Cummings won me on page 16 with this:
At the height of the dot-com frenzy, I took a job in San Francisco. After several weeks of dead ends, I left Los Angeles without having a place to live in San Francisco. I figured I'd get there, stay in a hotel for a few days, find a sublet, and move in. That seemed like the kind of whimsical thing people I knew did all the time, and it always worked out fabulously for them. I had forgotten that whimsy, like paisley, is incredibly unflattering on me.
I read and reread "whimsy, like paisley," rolled it around in my mouth, and gulped the rest of the book. It's a delightful and genuine mishmash in the best way -- a little mom stuff, a little showbiz, a little about how everyone feels cooler at the farmer's market. Again, it's not so much the story you're telling as the way you tell it.
(Re)Engaged for 2017
9 years ago
