Customer Reviews

Whatever Happened to Jacy Farrow?

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What I found most fascinating about Ceil Cleveland's book is that she writes about a largely unknown group of women: modern "pioneer" women of Texas in the 1950s, women whose trials and tribulations are known to the rest of us, perhaps, mainly in the lyrics of country music. The difference is that the women in Ceil's book are real, and she writes about them with subtlety. This is a memoir that reads like a novel. Ceil's girlhood would've put Houdini to shame -- she was a smart (and pretty) girl who escaped the constraints of a small redneck town. The town she describes was so suffocating, literally and figuratively. While reading her vivid prose, I could practically feel the intense Texas heat choking the life out of the houseplants. At the same time, I was annoyed (at the town fathers) that the town didn't even have a library. Yet Ceil prevailed. She read Greek myths because of their powerful goddess figures (remember, this was the 1950s). At the same time, she won local beauty contests and saved the money for college. And she got out. Somebody ought to base a "women's" film on this book, or just a film, because her themes are so universal -- and yet so personal. My mother, the toughest critic of all, read this book, couldn't put it down, and concluded, "Ceil must be a very gutsy woman.

Ceil Cleveland's memoirs of growing up in a small Texas town in the '50's is an absolute joy. Her description of the roads she traveled from then to the present is warm, witty, and often gut-wrenching. If you have a daughter, give her a copy. I am forcing myself to read it at intervals because I don't want it to end!

After a recent visit to Archer City (Thalia) Texas, I read Whatever Happened to Jacy Farrow, expecting a light-hearted rebuttal to Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show, a sort of "comin' back atcha" kind of book. This work, however, is at once, a serious reflection of a life, a social and cultural commemtary, and a source of great wisdom, insight, and humor. I was unprepared for the depth of emotion that it triggered, and for the way I interacted with it. I was not simply an observer, but a participant. I sat up late at night thinking of my own story, and the stories of my mother and grandmother. Ceil's memoir has encouraged and helped "this river remember its source". I read many reviews that claim "the book will be remembered long after the last page is turned". I usually scoff at that because it is often untrue. However, it is surely something that should be written about this one...it is being remembered and continues to be thought-provoking. I recommend it highly.

Through word of mouth, this book is slowly becoming a classic. I ran across a whole classful of university students reading this book in New York recently. I just re-read it recently, and still find it funny, moving, insigthtful, full of thoughtful philosophical musings on the vagaries of life. A profound book cast in three phases: the author as a young girl; the author in her thirties, and the author in her fifties. A unique life, a unique voice. Highly recommended.

This is a book about generations: mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons. It will resonate with anybody who has attempted to live within a family in a way we all call normal. It is funny, painful, but ultimately life affirming.

<P> Spiked with the grit and wit of a native-born Texas, Ceil Cleveland writes a story of self-definition and self-liberation that every women will and every man ought to understand. It is a moving and often surprising story of a girl's evolution to a womanhood not foreshadowed by the narrow image of Jacy Farrow in "The Last Picture Show."<P> As a young girl with a lively imagination and a creative mind growing up in a small Texas town, the author found the intellectual and cultural landscape as dry and dusty as the surrounding plains. Her mother's well of wisdom, extensive library, and own literary talents, plus the movies, offered her daughter an oasis of escape in the midst of a world dominated by men, football, and beauty contests.<P> Hope of total escape to a more exciting and fulfilling life through marriage to an educator faded quickly. The eventual realization that his passion for civil rights did not extend to equal rights and a non-traditional role for

As a peer growing up down the road in northwest Texas, I experienced Ceil's accurately picturing the sparse environment - geographically and intellectually. In the late 19th Century, men came seeking new beginnings in an area nearer the frontier mindset than with emerging sophistication of urban areas and gentility of the South. The women struggled to keep a foot in each camp. The result was dreams embedded in daughters and granddaughters - sometimes taking the third generation to fulfill their most inner longings. Rearrange the characters, add and subtract and Ceil has told my story of painful growth. Sadly, some didn't survive.

This is a must-read by a woman who grew from one of the smallest towns in Texas to the largest city in the United States with many adventures in between. The tale of the growth of a self-absorbed young girl into a wise and sucessful woman is accomplished with some wonderful metaphors. It incorporates some funny stories of Texas women, some surprising recipes, and both homespun wisdom and sophisticated wit. This book should appeal to men and women of all ages and backgrounds.

The tiny town of Archer City produced Larry McMurtry isn't that enough? I can only hope Ceil has purged herself from those Texas demons with this book and has now taken up skydiving or something other than writing. Gee, now I wished I hadn't found out what happened to her.