Customer Reviews

Autobiography of a Family Photo: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to admit, it has been a while since I read this book, but from what I can remember this book brought to light a lot of issues that one confronts growing up and approaching adulthood. The main character is forced to deal with a lot of heavy matters as many young people must do by no choice of their own. Reading this book made me think of the things that we experience as children that we don't stop to consider until years later.

I was fortunate enough to have found this book years ago. It is such a good book! It's very short, but poetic & beautiful. It's the kind of book that you can just read over and over again. I can't tell you how many times I've read it. It does have mature themes, so it's not for Woodson's typical juvenile audience. However it is a great book for the grown up readers out there. I can't recommend it enough! - I guess my only disappointment is that Woodson only writes for kids now, so she doesn't have any other books out there like this one.

With a stark clarity, a little girl tells about her life growing up in the late 1960s and 1970s. They are poor and dark-skinned, except for her baby brother, whose skin tells a different story. Her older brother is lively and loves wearing their mother's heels, but he's shipped off to Vietnam. She chronicles her life and the world around her, about how everyone knows if you don't let someone do it to you, you'll never get married. And about how wanting to kiss your best friend and touch her doesn't mean anything, anything at all in this dark and collapsing world. "Autobiography of a Family Photo" is a spirited, poetic, and dark tale of hope in the strangling grasp of a world without love. It's about that hazy line between courage and obstinacy that few can delineate, and even fewer can balance. This novel is considered one of the 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels by the Publishing Triangle.

When you think of the great American novel, you probably think of a big, thick book, maybe in several volumes, written by someone like John Jakes or James Michener. You probably wouldn't think of a slender, 113-page volume with prose as spare as poetry and just as descriptive. This little novel seems to have it all: coming of age, coming out, racial issues, incest, spousal abuse, lead paint, sex, love, Vietnam, masturbation, the generation gap, poverty, drugs, single motherhood, rock and roll, and the Brady Bunch. This is a short visit to a vivid world you won't soon forget

In the beginning Dorothy Allison author of Bastard Out Of Carolina wrote "The girl's voice will open your heart show you something you need to see look closely . This is a photo of great beauty, great heartbreak, greater love." Miss Allison how many hallucinogens did you ingest on an empty stomach before you read this sparse 113 paged novella?

Autobiography of a family photo was very disappointing. The sexual Sapphic episodes that the unnamed female character had with the others girls in the neighborhood was slightly amusing. There were too many vague scenes.

Autobiography of a Family Photo is supposedly Jacqueline Woodson's 2nd novel, all I can say is whenever in doubt, edit or elaborate. Miss Woodson had a great premise but lost it in the lyricism. It blatantly displayed the dysfunction of a dysfunctional family. The mother and father couldn't stop fighting, the older brothers were not great role models. One dressed up in womens' clothes and the other molested his baby sister. The illegimate child couldn't stop eating lead paint chips and the mother in her spare time when the father wasn't around decided to be a prostitute to make ends meet. Reading Autobiography of a Family Photo was nothing more than a very cheap thrill.

I began Autobiography of a Family Photo after finishing Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street. As I read, I couldn't help but compare the two. What most impressed me was how Jacqueline Woodson created a convincing child's voice, yet at the same time, wove more sophisticated elements into the story. Woodson's writing style, transitions, and overall conception makes Autobiography of a Family Photo a complex, poetic read.

While this book is termed a novel, one gets the sense much of this must come from the author's own life.
The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is because of the inconclusive ending. The book ends when the main character is only 15, leaving many unanswered questions.
One gets the impression that it is quite likely she becomes a lesbian, but we never really know.
The main character grows up in what I assume to be a black ghetto. Her family disintegrates early on. The mother means well by her children but is promiscious, which adds to the family's problems.
As is frequently the case in these situations, the characters seem to lack the ability to grasp the long term consequences of their actions.
The book is written with a great deal of honesty and raw truth.