Family Memoirs - Biography, Gay & Lesbian Studies, Gay & Lesbian Biographies
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Overview
Like the heart-to-heart conversations you share with your funniest, most honest, most unshockable woman friend, What It's Like to Live Now reveals the intimate details of a singular life as it is lived by a member of a singular generation. In 1968 Meredith Maran was expelled from the elite Bronx High School of Science for leading protests against the Vietnam War. She was an active member of the generation that pledged to change the world, end injustice, and stay young forever. Today (despite all expectations to the contrary) she is forty-three, with an ex-husband, a lover, two teenage sons, and a mortgage on her dream house at the edge of the Oakland ghetto. One thing hasn't changed: Meredith is still asking big questions. How do you justify your decision to stay in the inner city when your son wants to carry a knife to junior high to protect himself? How do you create a happy healthy family when nothing in your childhood taught you how - and your new life partner is a woman? How do you keep your heart open when breast cancer and AIDS are attacking your closest friends? And how do you stay true to your hopes for a better world when there's a living to be made and a homeless man at the front gate? Happily, Meredith Maran navigates these dilemmas without ever losing her subversive sense of humor. Whether she is challenging the nutritionally correct with her death-by-chocolate birthday cake or agonizing over what kind of nightgown to pack for her first weekend with a woman lover, her eye for life's contradictions is hilariously accurate. What Its Like to Live Now is a poignant exploration of the gap between the dreams of the sixties and the realities of the nineties - and a reminder that even as youthful idealism goes gray at the temples, life can be lived with love, commitment, and integrity. Reflected in the mirror Meredith Maran holds up to her choices and experiences, you are certain to catch a glimpse of your own.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Mixing self-scrutiny with broader reflections on contemporary life, Maran's politically engaged reflections examine daily events and personal relationships. (Apr.)Library Journal
Aging baby boomer and social activist Maran chronicles her life for us in this intensely personal narrative. After growing up in New York City in the 1960s, she moved to California, married, had two sons, divorced, then settled in Oakland. Later, she and her sons moved into the house they currently share with her lover, Ann. Maran recounts her feelings on such diverse topics as Buddhism, breast cancer, the modern workplace, violence in her neighborhood, and psychotherapy. Most of all, she attempts to reconcile her activist ideals of the 1960s and 1970s with her life today and shows us clearly how her life has been and is still shaped by them. Highly recommended for all collections.-Gwen Gregory, New Mexico State Univ. Lib., Las CrucesBook Details
Published
April 1, 1996
Publisher
Bantam Dell Pub Group (Trd)
Pages
335
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780553374933