“It’s clever, it’s dry, and it’s ironic. I laughed out loud at lines like, “Decoupage hit Mooreland pretty hard.”
A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel, is a memoir of her childhood in Mooreland, IN during the 70’s, and as far as memoirs go, this one lacks the drama and tragedy and depressive nature of most books in the genre.
But I wouldn’t call it lighthearted or uplifting. There are undercurrents of dysfunction as you read between the lines: the poverty of the area, her father’s gambling habits, and the lack of attention paid to her that borders on neglect. Zippy - nicknamed so because once she started walking, she zipped around like crazy - was an “oops child” as I call it, or a caboose kiddo, as another friend calls it, which is to say she came unexpectedly, ten years after her sister. The family house was not prepared for her, nor did they make room for her, so she slept on a cot next to the wood burning stove (and to think I felt bad for sitting at a t.v. tray off the corner of the dining table at family holiday dinners).
As a writer, this aspect of the memoir is fascinating, and I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time thinking about it. I think her humor and wit are brilliant, and could be taken one of two ways. Either she’s the class clown type who avoids the confrontation of stress by telling a joke, or she is able to look back on her small town dysfunctional life in a glass half full sort of way. I’m leaning more toward the latter interpretation. She doesn’t avoid the dark upbringing, nor does she cheapen it with shallow humor. She alludes to it by telling the story through the eyes of a child who doesn’t fully comprehend the life she’s living.
(Read my full review here: http://bit.ly/10qYJt)”
JenZug wrote this review Tuesday, February 24 2009.
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