A Girl's Life: Horses, Boys, Weddings, & Luck

Even before I realized that Marianne Gingher was from NC (my home state) I was a fan of "Bobby Rex's Greatest Hit." As a fan, and a writer, I really wanted to read her memoir. The title of this memoir is apt. Gingher proceeds to describe the life that, I think, most of the world lives--simple but not at all unimportant. This memoir takes us through her chldhood with horses, boys and even weddings she was in as a child and her own. Gingher's style is easy to read but yet filled with wonderful turns of phrase. Even if you aren't a writer, I think you will find this memoir interesting and possibly uplifting. I like to collect quotes but I had a hard time narrowing down which one I wanted to use. I finally decided on this from page 73, "Lack of proof gives one creative latitude. But a writer remembers the past with a memory that is stored with the self-serving loopholes of revision."

This charming account of life warmed me, mostly because Gingher writes it in the moment. She is able to capture the untainted memories, the way she first experienced them, as if she keeps them wrapped in paper in a cedar chest. She allows us to see her shift as she becomes older, lay a more seasoned view on her experiences as her life progresses, and I love how her earliest tales are told as she probably told them back then. I found her accounts believable and beyond intersting, her details startlingly fresh, all tinged with humor. A happy childhood is not an unfulfilling one - it is filled with risks, heartbreak, and danger because this is the nature of all human life. Gingher has chronicled such a life and does so with such style that I marveled as much at her description and control as I did the stories themselves. This is a treasure.