Customer Reviews

Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Susan Jane Gilman went along for the ride (sometimes kicking and screaming inside) but never really bought into her parent's eccentric lifestyle. Instead of sticking out like a sore thumb (her parents were not only liberal but their idea of a vacation was a week at a Socialist retreat), she yearned only to be "like everyone else", even if that meant living a conventional, even bland, lifestyle. Her dreams were those of typical little girls of the time - to become a ballerina or, perhaps (with luck and the right breaks) a movie star.
But if she HAD lived a more conventional life, I doubt Gilman would ever had turned out a book so funny, so unique and...well, written from an outsider's perspective. Gilman realizes some of her dreams and drops some along the way. She writes about sex, love, work and that elusive "pouffy white dress" in a vivid, endearing style. By the time you reach the end of the book, you'll be yearning for more from this writer.

This book is easily the funniest I have read in the past five years.Whether she's describing an encounter with a Maharishi who looks like "a lawn troll in drag," or her teen obsession with Mick Jagger ("Where were the magazines for 15 year old girls in love with British bi-sexual coke-heads, thank you?"), Gilman's delightfully warped perspective abounds. An unapologetic sexual hedonist ("Being told to `wait until marriage' was like being ordered to hold our breath for twelve years") she weaves hilarious tales of a youth misspent "staggering around bars in lace stockings and leather jackets, then coming home with toilet paper stuck to our shoes" as well as working in a series of dead-end jobs ("like terminal illnesses") that make you wince with recognition. Ultimately, however, it is Gilman's razor-sharp intelligence and smart-mouth feminism that leave you thinking well after the laughter fades.

There are actually a lot of pouffy white dresses in Susan Jane Gilman's achingly funny memoir, HYPOCRITE IN A POUFFY WHITE DRESS. There's the tutu she insists on wearing to school, sparking a kindergarten fashion trend. There are her Puerto Rican neighbors' first communion dresses, which make young Susan "spastic with envy" and determined to become Hispanic. And last but not least, there's the pouffy white dress of the title story, the wedding dress that inspires a revision in Gilman's feminist sensibilities: "I was supposed to be the Anti-Bride ... I was not some insipid girlie-girl dolled up like a parade float. But in that dress, with the tiara, I was intoxicated with myself."

Gilman's revelations on the pedestal at David's Bridal are a lot like her memoir as a whole: simultaneously funny, thoughtful and unexpected. For example, when she lands her first "real" job after college at the Jewish Week newspaper, Gilman is assigned to report on a week-long tour for teenagers of Polish Holocaust sites. Initially pleased simply to call herself a "foreign correspondent," Gilman, who is at most ambivalent toward her Jewish heritage, gradually finds herself deeply moved by the concentration camps. Even though she eloquently describes the trip's unexpectedly emotional impact, Gilman also includes a genuinely funny commentary on the souvenirs available at the Treblinka gift shop.

Gilman was previously best known for the wisecracking dating manual KISS MY TIARA, an alternative to bestselling 1990s women's advice books like THE RULES. She notes in her foreword that part of the goal of this book is to write a "coming-of-age" story that doesn't focus solely on getting a man. "There's so much more to women's lives that's worthy of attention and ridicule," she writes. And indeed, Gilman's memoir will have the most appeal for other young(ish) women, who will see themselves in Gilman's own awkward adolescence and questionable career development, as well as in her struggles to define herself in the wake of the feminist movement. Anyone from Gilman's generation, though --- born in the 1960s, raised on the pop culture and pop psychology of the 1970s --- will laugh out loud at the cultural references Gilman sprinkles liberally throughout her memoir.

HYPOCRITE IN A POUFFY WHITE DRESS starts with Gilman's preschool years and ends in 2001, as she begins a new phase of her life --- happily married and living in Geneva, Switzerland. One can only hope that Gilman will continue to chronicle this next chapter of her life in books as smart and funny as this one.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

but I couldn't help it, Susan Jane won me over.

Yes, this is a collection of irreverent personal essays, a category terribly overpublished and often pointless, but Gilman's voice emerges (in most pieces) as an authentic one. Nothing really extraordinary happens in these coming-of-age vignettes. The author quits a job, loses a job, lives abroad, finds love, repeatedly makes a fool of herself and/or puts her foot in her mouth - all fodder for pretty average memoir material. But Gilman's storytelling is so compelling, her eye for detail and the absurdities of life so acute, that somehow this ends up being an overall satisfying read. A few of the pieces do fall flat (the title piece particularly so), and Gilman occasionally slips into quick bouts of navel-gazing or juvenile obnoxiousness. But her writing is solid, her approach is well-intentioned, and she can be especially illuminating on difficult topics like the foibles of family life and contemporary feminism.

As I laughed out loud in Barnes and Noble while flipping through this book (I read Critic's Pick review in People Magazine, my own guilty pleasure when traveling), the sales clerk asked me what it was about -- and I couldn't say, only that it was so vividly written it brought me back to so many of my own misadventures and embarrassments of childhood and early professional life. Only Gilman captures these moments with a clarity that I never could in trying to tell them. Enjoy a witty ride through somebody else's traumatic and yet totally normal life. Now that I've finished it -- it's about a woman growing up and finding her way. But it's not the destination that matters, it's definitely the tall tales of the journey.

I found the chapters scattered and storyline pretty uneventful. The book was not a quick read. Pretty forgetable overall. Funny moments, some chapters were more entertaining than others, but def was not a page turner.

This is a memoir like no other. From being a child of hippie parents to becoming an adult today, Susan Jane Gilman tells the `not so usual' coming of age story.

Where most books portray coming of age in the teen years, Gilman takes it a step further - the true coming of age into adulthood. The story begins in 1969 as Gilman's family was living in subsidized housing in Upper Manhattan where crimes and gang activity were rampant. She tells us of their vacation in Silver Lake where this city girl can experience nature like she'd never seen.

Gilman speaks about her own insecurities and the desire to be liked and accepted. These desires didn't just appear when she hit adolescence. She show us these desires throughout her life as she brags about being in a movie at age four, changes her name to Sapphire and creates tall tales for show and tell in kindergarten, practices endlessly for the starring role in the school play and even as she vies for attention from boys and eventually men.

She carries us through her changing body as she grows from child to woman and the reality of graduating from college and discovering the hiring managers of the world weren't exactly holding their breath waiting for her to graduate.

But the story and possibly Gilman's life to a certain extent, took on a different meaning when she was assigned to do a story about a group of teenagers visiting the concentration camps in Germany. Technically Jewish, but not devout or exclusive, she gets serious at this point in the book and seeing the remnants of the people that lost their lives at the camps through the eyes of Gilman as an adult and through the eyes of the teenagers who were there with her created a sort of generation gap and bridge at the same time.

After Gilman left the Jewish paper, she took on freelance jobs and eventually landed in Washington, DC. Her take on the government is a must for all to read. Her parents divorce after she becomes an adult and her range of emotions are as strong as if she were still a child. She also tells us about her wedding and her desire for it to be as untraditional as possible.

Since she's a self-described feminist of now-divorced parents, the untraditional part is way over the top especially when she finds that her mind may be nonconformist but her body is built for tradition. But her life doesn't end at marriage, that's when her European period begins...

Anyone born in the sixties will relate to this story. Gilman proves we all face many of the same choices whether we grow up in the city or the country, feminist or not. We're all women and that's our common bond.

Hilariously told and raucous in its humor, Gilman spares herself least of all in this wonderful memoir. From the childhood stories of having to learn transcendental meditation in the 70s to meeting Mick Jagger in the 80s to the final pouf of the 90s, this is the funniest book I've read this year. If you're down about the November election, this won't cure, but it will help kill the pain.

With five other books on my bedside table, why can't I put this one down? Because I'm so drawn into this book that it feels like I'm living it myself. Susan Jane Gilman not only expertly draws the pictures, but reaches out a hand and pulls you into them. At times hilarious and at others so close to home that I feel the embarassment of being the "different" kid in school all over again, she hits the mark. I loved Kiss My Tiara, and like loving two kids ("I don't love him more than you, I love you differently...) this one has found its own home in my heart. Thanks again Ms. Gilman!

I've never written a book review before, But I took this book on vacation and I was hooked by the first chapter. I had plucked this book off a shelf not knowing anything about it. Just a chick lit memoir, I thought - but I figured that was ok. This book was much more than that.
The first time I really laughed out loud was in the beginning when she describes the filming of the "hippie" movie where the neighbor is trying to catch butterflies in a "gefilte fish jar"... now I had an immediate vision, and, being Jewish, that small detail reeled me in.
While I couldn't really relate to her somewhat non traditional NYC upbringing, the desciptions of her ability to re-invent herself by telling tall tales in school, her brush with celebrity, and her experiences as a journalist at the Jewish Week as she tries to figure out the bizarre customs of Judaism, were both hysterically funny and thought provoking, as were so many other incidents as Susan describes them, leading up to the
incident for which the book is named.
I have visited the concentration camps, so I fully understood the confusion she felt while taking in the evidence of the horrors that happened there, while at the same time watching teenagers being teenagers amid souvenir stands and cafes.
I have recommended this book to all my female friends - Jewish and non-Jewish. The Jewish "parts" are merely an attempt by a non-practicing Jew to figure out what it's all about. But the book is much more than that. An enjoyable read with many many laughs.
As with any enjoyable book, I couldn't wait to finish it but I was sorry when I did.