If you're a Baby Boomer, War Baby or just tantalized by the colorful 1950's, this book is for you. If you enjoy hearing about the idyllic days of that economically-robust period when kids were free to roam away from home on foot or bike, when mothers were always there to help with homework and made sure to have a bountiful supper on the table by 6 P.M., when going to town was an event for dressing up, when church was a huge part of the community fabric, when fish fries and ice cream socials were as ubiquitous as the old faithful Nash and Studebaker, then read this ... but not without an embroidered handkerchief.
It will make you laugh and cry at the same time.
At any age, this story captures the mind and soul. American's finest modern era is recaptured in this heartfelt novel, offered in poetic prose, taking you back to a simpler time when the middle class burgeoned happily after WWII and when all was right... or almost right... with the world.
What can I say except that I loved the book; read every word with great care. The players came so clearly to me, and I could relate to them from my 50's life. Memories, memories and more memories: Kennedy funeral, the first TV after I entered Nursing School in 1952, the washer wringer machine replaced by the automatic; never a dryer though. My angora bobby socks, a gift from my babysitting days at Xmas time and my most treasured socks; saved for good. I didn't have a poodle skirt because my Mother told me not to depend on the latest fads; mine was shaped like a poodle skirt but was a white quilted skirt with black and red bumble bees and wide waist band with a tiny width black belt; I was a belt person but no more; my waist has grown. Crinolines; multi under the calf length party dresses; I had a blue sash on a embroidered dress but got the end of the sash in the toilet bowl at Bob's fraternity Dream Girl dance but still got the title of Dream Girl of PKI. Ice house is a great memory; going there as well as them delivering ice to the house. My life was of "Intersanctum and The Green Beetle", Burns and Allen via radio. A great book that doesn't have to have leud sex descriptions to be understood. A great book and I feel a Classic that will be on the best list and would be a great movie in a time of need to remember what was and could be in our generation. Loved it. We need more books of this time. Ana
Everman, Ellen: - Ellen Everman is the author of Pink Dice, a novel set in the 1950s. She teaches creative writing at Baker Hunt Art & Cultural Center in Covington, Kentucky, and is former Editor of Arts Across Kentucky magazine. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, Ellen is a free-lance writer and author of short stories and poetry. Her life revolves around writing, history, literature, music, dancing, painting, friends and family. She was thirteen when the first protests of the sixties and seventies began and can be found on Facebook posting about this turbulent period of American history, which she considers the most exciting, complex and idealistic years of her life. In her early twenties, she spoke with Alice Roosevelt Longworth many times through the circumstance of knowing a Cincinnati Longworth relative, connecting her heart to the beautiful city of Cincinnati and the noblesse oblige history of the Roosevelts
