by Emily Hancock (1990)
Any woman reading The Girl Within will have the extraordinary experience of self-discovery as she finds in this collection of women's life stories the playful, purposeful, self-possessed girl of her childhood. Author Emily Hancock claims that this self-possessed girl -- a girl who knows who she is and what she's about -- is a resource for contemporary women. Dr. Hancock concludes, however, that a female easily loses sight of who and what she really is beneath the feminine facade she adopts in youth -- simply through the process of growing up female. The women Hancock interviewed reclaim the forgotten girl. They trace not just one but a variety of paths back to her. In a series of first-person accounts that read like marvelous mini-novels, Hancock elucidates the vicissitudes of losing and refinding the essential self. From the story of Katherine, a pediatrician whose grandmother hosted musical salons, to that of Jo, whose father put bootblack on her white socks when her toes poked through her black shoes, the girl who harbors a female's original identity reappears again and again. Women who reached back to catch hold of a girl they could rely on to found in the girl a source of womanly strength. Through engrossing life stories, psychologist Hancock provides the female reader one self-realization after another as she clarifies the girl's image and shows how important it is to recapture her. Like Gail Sheehy's Passages and Maggie Scarf's Unfinished Business, Hancock's is a landmark book. Written in a style as lucid as it is lively, it gives the intelligent reader -- man and woman alike -- an invaluable understanding of the forces at work in women's psychology. The Girl Within offers a natural, female model of identity development that starts with the girl and circles back to her. In a study that is destined to have a profound impact, Hancock shows just how the girl begets the woman.
Emily White
In this insightful, soul-baring, and illuminating memoir, White reveals her battle to understand and overcome severe loneliness, and contends that this crippling condition deserves the same attention as other mental difficulties such as depression.
Anita Harris
The essays in this text cover girlhood around the world and cover such key areas as schooling, sexuality, popular culture and identity.
Brian Doyle
A cast of motley characters helps Young Tommy and Baby Bridget discover that there are many ways to love and heal and die.
Mira Ptacin
"Guided by the narrative of her mother's tragic loss of a son years earlier, Mira Ptacin confronts an unexpected pregnancy with a child who has no chance of survival outside the womb. At age twenty-eight, Mira Ptacin discovered she was pregnant. Though it was unplanned, she soon embraced the pregnancy and became engaged to Andrew, the father. Five months later, an ultrasound revealed birth defects that would give the child no chance of survival outside the womb. Mira was given three options: terminate her pregnancy, induce early delivery, or wait and inevitably miscarry. Mira's story is woven together with the story of her mother, who emigrated from Poland, also at the age of twenty-eight, and adopted a son, Julian. Julian would die tragically, bringing her an unimaginable grief. A memoir about loss and self-preservation, grief and recovery, and mothers and daughters, Poor Your Soul is a beautiful examination of free will, love, and the fierce bonds of family"-- "At age twenty-eight, Mira Ptacin discovered she was pregnant. Though it was unplanned, she soon embraced the pregnancy and became engaged to Andrew, the father. Five months later, an ultrasound revealed birth defects that would give the child no chance of survival outside the womb. Mira was given three options: terminate her pregnancy, induce early delivery, or wait and inevitably miscarry. Mira's story is woven together with the story of her mother, who emigrated from Poland, also at the age of twenty-eight, and adopted a son, Julian. Julian would die tragically, bringing her an unimaginable grief. A memoir about loss and self-preservation, grief and recovery, and mothers and daughters, Poor Your Soul is a beautiful examination of free will, love, and the fierce bonds of family"--