Why am I passionate about this?
I grew up in the 1960s in the Midwest, in a male-dominated family, where appearances were highly important, where no one seemed to focus on anyone’s feelings or plans (particularly as a female member of the family). As a result, I’m drawn to books where the author explores this type of problematic relationship, of a protagonist trying to carve out her identity in the midst of often overwhelming obstacles. It also interests me to read about women who, like me, somehow managed to discover who they were (I use the word “translate” in my memoir), to carve out an identity that is separate from the idea that people around her erroneously hold to be true.
Linda's book list on memoirs that touch upon something special
Why did Linda love this book?
I highly recommend Poetic License for anyone who a) grew up in a patriarchy and b) had fathers who were larger than life.
Cherington’s father was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and she had to live in his shadow for much of her life, and accommodate to a world which largely revolved around him.
It was fascinating to read about the notable literary figures who came to their home but, at the same time, having grown up in a patriarchy myself, with a larger-than-life father, I could easily imagine what life was life for the author, a life she describes in beautiful, lyrical language.
1 author picked Poetic License as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
At age forty, with two growing children and a new consulting company she'd recently founded, Gretchen Cherington, daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Eberhart, faced a dilemma: Should she protect her parents' well-crafted family myths while continuing to silence her own voice? Or was it time to challenge those myths and speak her truth-even the unbearable truth that her generous and kind father had sexually violated her?
In this powerful memoir, aided by her father's extensive archives at Dartmouth College and interviews with some of her father's best friends, Cherington candidly and courageously retraces her past to make sense of…