Another book rec in what, a week a half? Oh, the abundance!
This is one of those titles I happened upon at a favorite book store—Logos, in Santa Cruz. It’s a 2009 memoir (I can’t stop reading memoirs) by Carlene Bauer, a first-time author who has published articles in Salon and the NYT. I’d never heard of her, but now I want to read everything she writes.
The story is basically a bildungsroman, tracing the notable emotional events of Bauer’s adolescence and early adulthood, in which she movingly wrestles with faith and sexuality. The book is a kind of quiet thrill, almost Victorian in its ability to excite merely from interior events. A single thought can set off a cascade of feeling.
At the same time, what might have been major events are often referred to in passing, so that we stay with Bauer’s consciousness and not what might appear to be the headlines of her story. What an accomplishment—to write a memoir without objectifying oneself! I am always wondering how that can be done.
Not That Kind of Girl is also gorgeously, patiently written. It is the opposite of the bloghorraeic memoirs that feel dashed off under deadline. It is somehow humble and gorgeously crafted and complex and unputdownable, all at once.
Thank you, Carlene!