Jeanne, her three sisters and her parents move from St.Louis to Amagansett in June of 1976, the beginning of this memoir. Jeanne's father is a writer who is always just ABOUT to be wildly successful and publish a best seller. Her Mother stays at home and cooks and drinks.
Jeanne grows up in this household with these parents and her sisters, becomes a writer and drinker herself and tells her story: witty, poignant, honest, profane.
About her Dad:
"I saw him as a tragic hero. Like all tragic characters, he was trying to do the impossible--write novels, sell novels, make money, keep the drinking under control, get the cracked wife some help, take care of four kids. Like all tragic heroes, he had a fundamental lack of self-awareness."
About her Mom"
"Like a professional chef, Mom was never hungry by the time dinner came around, never really ate a meal with us. She took one bite, lit a cigarette and began a sort of post-shift meltdown.....And she'd weave up the front staircase to her bedroom and shut the door. That was more or less how my mother now said good night..."
But there is a lot of love in this story. At the end, Jeanne writes:
"I have to let my father read this book and it is terrifying to think that I will hurt him with it...Am I saying he put writing before all of us? All my father has done has been to show me wild enthusiasm and encouragement as a writer. I would never want to hurt him. I admire his writing and know I am not half the thinker or writer he is. His support of my writing was never about the writing for me. It was the love from my dad."
From this underlying family history, she emerges with her own voice:
"Things were worse than before I quit drinking. I was now living in a couple rooms with wigs drying on a hanger outside my front door and a restless unpredictable teenage pot-head next door and no bathroom and no money, no job, no ascertainable work skills, all without alcohol."
The book is good because of the love in spite of dysfunction, or can be read just for the very funny scenes describing the ongoing "obsession" her father has with Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald or Jeanne's various misadventures as she constantly moves about and changes jobs and lives the wild life in New York. And it is also a tale of someone who finds she has to write:
"My days so far as a small-time writer have been just that, essential to me as if they are a great masterpiece. Did I just quote Zelda Fitzgerald?"
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