I absolutely adored Catherine Gildiner’s Too Close to the Falls, the memoir of her childhood as an unusual, hyper child (she had a job in her father’s pharmacy by the age of four and started smoking at nine…)
I couldn’t wait for that book’s sequel, After The Falls, about growing up in the sixties (and moving away from the small town close to Niagara where Gildiner’s father’s store was). I was looking forward to seeing how the bouncy, confident child of the first book transitioned to adulthood, and I wasn’t disappointed. She went through a lot of changes, from trying desperately to fit in to campaigning for civil rights.
Although much more poignant than the first book and featuring some really sad moments, this second memoir is just as well-written and I fell in love with Gildiner’s voice all over again. Her stories of the civil rights struggles of the sixties are especially interesting. In fact, it’s amazing what she managed to cram into her teen years (I mostly just read and watched TV…). I’d love to read more of Gildiner’s memories, so I was really happy to read on her blog that there will be a third memoir, The Long Way Home.
*Many thanks to Viking Books for the review copy.
