Booklife

An engrossing memoir about a spirited and independent-minded young woman growing up on the pre-Sixties East Coast. The book is, in part, about how the particular time and place — and family — you are born into shapes you, whether you embrace those factors or rebel against them. Like her mother, who was a lawyer, she ultimately powered her way into a profession dominated by men and became a successful architect. As Gail Godwin notes, this is “a masterful work of anthropology, a compelling tale of a stubborn female individual coming of age not in Samoa but in upper-class America just before women’s rights kicked in. Laced with a subtle under-wit and sometimes alarming candor.”