|
One of my favorite books a few years ago was A Girl Named Zippy, the prequel to this book, Haven "Zippy" Kimmel's follow up memoir. Not once does she offer a word of recrimination towards her mother and father, but imbues this story with all the love a child feels for her parents. Delonda also begins to open Zippy's eyes to the opportunities there were available outside of their small town. When last we left Delonda Kimmel she was riding a bicycle, her first step off the couch where she had spent the last twenty years of her life, reading, watching TV and gaining a lot of weight. A lovely memoir that doesn't cast the people around her as cruel but as what we all are, flawed, despite our very best intentions. This book picks up right from that point, as Delonda takes a competency exam and gets into Ball College, where she graduates in two years, loses one hundred pounds, gets a Master's Degree and becomes a teacher- all without any emotional support from her husband. I am delighted to say that this book is equally as funny and touching, but also a little deeper in its examination of the some of the fallout of a mother struggling to find herself in the women's movement of the early 70's. As Zippy begins to understand that her parents' marriage is slowly unraveling she again expertly portrays the feelings of anxiety and bewilderment a young teen feels as her home life slowly comes apart, but also opens as she realizes all the possibilities there are in the world as she begins to understand what it took for her mother to reinvent herself.
Zippy manages to go through life, if not oblivious to the turmoil in her family, definitely with an optimistic and quirky view of her unconventional upbringing. Despite living in poverty and often neglected by both her parents Zippy found safe haven with the families of her friends and her older sister, all pitching in to help raise this child. The ending of the book brought tears to my eyes as Zippy comes to understand that even those you love most in life can disappoint you.
She also writes about her parents and their marriage. Haven did not disappoint. She writes a lot of her older sister Melinda (Lindy) and her children. what were her parents thinking.
Kimmel grows up though heavily influenced by her mother and her mother's love of literature. No one is perfect and they all have their flaws, but their love for one another shows through in every single page. Her love for her family is fierce even if she is downright funny and in some places, bewildering. Haven Kimmel picks up where she left off in her first memoir, "A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana." This time, she is a little bit older and this time, there are more observations about her parents and siblings. I have read two other books by Kimmel and was really looking forward to this one.
She got up off the couch and managed to get a college education. something that she has always wanted to accomplish. Kimmel writes of her mother and how one day, her mother decided to get off the couch where she had spent the last 20 years reading and eating. She writes of her older brother whom she idolized. She writes of her friendships and of going to summer camp where her panty-hose was ripped to shreds the first night because they had to kneel for prayers on the wooden floors of the chapel.
She writes with humor of a little girl who is so straggly that her mother's best friends were always feeding her, scrubbing her until the gray rings are gone from around her neck and without complaint too. This book held me in its grip from the first page and on. In the course of getting the degrees, she managed to lose over a hundred pounds, showed the world that in spite of being married and being a grandma even, she made her own dreams come true. In the course of pursuing her education, Kimmel's mother lost her marriage.
Kimmel also is influenced by her handsome father who was the love of her life but is also a very overbearing person. This memoir shows a family that is really like a lot of families in America, especially in the Midwest. (In this case, not thinking).
This is a funny book filled with poignant observations by a child who claimed that she is really invisible, otherwise would adults talk in her presence of things that most people wouldn't talk about in the presence of children. In spite of all of the flaws that Kimmel's parents may have, Kimmel grows up to be a really neat writer.I wouldn't hesitate to pick this book up again. (She also mentioned that she was the only child who never went forward to be "claimed" by Jesus that week and maybe in the entire history of that camp).
Kimmel's memories show that it does take a village to raise a child, especially one like Zippy who is just untameable and lovable. Kimmel captures the love with grace and humor and sometimes, it is just downright funny and other times, it is just appalling. it is just a good read of growing up in Smalltown, America.11/14/09
She writes about her young life, perhaps age 7 or so to age 13. I loved this book. There is much that is dysfunctional about her home life but she writes with no bitterness. It was a joy to read and hard to put down. I didn't read her first memoir, "A Girl Named Zippy," but I certainly will now. I can't explain how she writes in a child persona but without condescension or mimicry of a child's voice--she does this very effectively. I grew to love this child and wanted to keep knowing her.
If you ever get the chance, rent the playaway or CD versions, she reads the books herself nad the are absoulutly HYSTERICAL I hope she writes a third soon of her teen years, college, how she met her husband and so on,she rocks.
He was three years old. In this book, we learn more.".one afternoon when he lost his temper Mom said, "Danny, I'm taking your cap away until you can behave yourself. They were elemental, heavy as a dead planet. Nine years is an effort, it requires commitment, and that much history becomes heavy, it has weight. With Zippy, we saw the good of her childhood and only the smallest hints of that which was not as it should be.but now Kimmel opens our eyes.For instance, in "Zippy", her brother Danny is pictured as a silent hero, one who was "different" - but only in ways that made him more loved and admired by Kimmel. Following that would be just a few years where there were five, and some of that time we were in a pile but for most of them the brother-colored blip was pulling away.
Their eyes open to the world that surrounds them. He sang like an angel, he was faithful to God and he waited honorably for the wife he believed God chose for him. One chance - that's what she had seen she had - one flying leap that was really composed of eight thousand separate possibilities for failing."This is a book about growing up. When you're done acting this way, you can have it back." He looked her dead in the eye. Had 16 markers.and none of them were for negative things.I only "discovered" Haven Kimmel about 2 months ago, and since then, I've read 3 of her books and am starting on my fourth. Back to four, but again, only briefly. Gotta fall in love before I get all the details, turns out.Anyway - to finish for now with Danny, Haven Kimmel writes this of her older brother: "In truth, if here could be said to be one truth about my brother, it is that he carried both a tombstone and scraps of coal in a little read wagon, and what that did to him and what it meant to him is written in a closed book in a library guarded by dragons. Both the author and her mother seem to evolve in this book.
Where Kimmel writes of her mother, "She had taken her vows and then they had taken her, and the forces amassed against her were greater than love, greater than obligation. When I read books to review, I put little markers on the pages to note where something stood out - either a quote or a happening that I will probably want to comment on. I finished my review of that book by saying, "I'm looking forward to another trip to Mooreland.in a literary way."This trip to Mooreland, Indiana (pop. He looked at us, his parents, his sisters, his whole crooked family, and he flexed his jaw muscles, packed up his truck, and drove away." Where there are several parts of the book that acknowledge the darker side of Kimmel's small town life, there are many, many parts like this:"Bu the time we were thirteen Rose and I had been friends for nine years.
And her mother Delonda finally takes the leap that frees her from the tiny world of her couch in Mooreland into a world that is more amazing than she could believe.The results are mixed. Hmmm - makes me think of Rebecca Wells - I am so glad I read "Ya-Ya Sisterhood" before "Little Altars" - even through "Altars" was written first. He said, "I don't ever want it back." And she knew right then that she had snapped a little something in him entirely by accident, a part of him that must have been born fearing the way love unzips us and leaves us vulnerable to assault. And for some time during the years there were three of us.""So there would be a little piece of this visual aid, a few inches at most, where I thought there were three of us but I was wrong.
He zipped that part up."Beautifully written, and this time, instead of acting as just another family anecdote, this time we feel more of the repercussions behind the story.Let me just say here that I loved both books, and am VERY glad I read them in this order. One of them, the one for which she is probably most well known is "A Girl Named Zippy" - which was the memoir that leads into this one. After years and years of living her life from a couch and through books, Kimmel's mother abruptly breaks away, attends college, earns a master's degree and loses over a hundred pounds. "She Got Up Off the Couch". Haven Kimmel starts to see that her world is far different than the magical one she thought she knew. Guess I need the lighter parts of the story before I peel back the skin to see what's really underneath.
At best there was Mom and me together, and sometimes - not nearly so often - Dad and me. There is still much in this book that is sweet, but though the author still never seems bitter, now that sweetness is tinged with a bit of sorrow."If my family could be represented with different-colored blips on a time line, there would be years and years where there were four all huddled up together, although it's best not to dwell too long on that part because it would have been before I was born and it hardly makes sense anyway. Positive or negative, most of the books I read have about 8, maybe 9 markers at the most. There was magic in her childhood, true, but now we (and she) know some of it was dark. The family that Kimmel loved and thought she knew was little more than a mirage. (In truth, a turkey feather)."This book is so beautiful and so sad and so funny.and I haven't even touched on the actual story yet.
But most of the time I was sitting there alone, and didn't realize it. I liked to sing along with Donny (Osmond) while simultaneously pretending to draft a version of the Bill of Rights, using a fake quill pen. 300) was just as enjoyable.but where Zippy seemed written with adult words but through a child's eyes."She Got Up Off the Couch" is colored far more deeply with adult sensibilities. The sister-blip moved away, if not so far. He made two daughters who shone like mirrors in the direct sun; he blazed his path with a scythe and his broad shoulders, and he was who he chose to be, which is the hardest and bravest thing a man can do. There were all those nosebleeds (Rose was the only person I knew with chronic, scary nosebleeds, so I assumed it was a Catholic thing; her strange relationship to "white chocolate", which was, no doubt about it, a left-handed invention."And - "Judy Blume was the personal savior of every girl in the Mooreland Elementary School and I swear if not for her none of us would have known the slightest thing about the slightest thing." Amen.Remembering that Kimmel's nickname was Zippy, it's another example of the unique child she was."He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".(was) a favorite to play not at top volume in my bedroom, but downstairs on the stereo that was shaped, improbably, like a Colonial desk.
Then he was gone. A mercy, that ignorance."
|
