Amy Dickinson is best known as the author of "Ask Amy," a popular syndicated newspaper advice column. In her memoir The Mighty Queens of Freeville, she shared the journey she took that led her from Freeville--a tiny village (pop. 520) in New York State--to Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., London and Chicago, with forays back to her hometown. Along the way she became a contributor to Time magazine, a regular on NPR and later succeeded Ann Landers, taking over her legendary advice column with the Chicago Tribune.
In Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things, Dickinson continues her story, rooting her narrative more fully in Freeville, a town with "one stop sign marking the end of tree-lined Main Street." It has been home to Dickinson's ancestors for generations. They originally settled there in 1790, thanks to a land grant given for fighting in the Revolutionary War. "I come from a place that seems to nurture two kinds of people: those who stay and those who leave. I grew up in a family of stayers, but I left. And now, as far as I know, I am the only person in the entire history of Freeville... to leave--but then return again."
Dickinson, a divorced, single mother--and her daughter, Emily--spent 18 happy years of vacations and summers in Freeville, visiting with her mother, aunts, sisters and other extended family. It wasn't until Emily went away to college, however, that the author, 48 years old and completely on her own, "chose to move home permanently," living in a house down the street from her aging and increasingly infirm mother. "Smack in midlife, I resumed the lifelong job of growing up," Dickinson says, as she unpacks an adventurous story that winds through her upbringing and recounts how, when her often menacing father abandoned the family, their dairy farm failed. Her stoic mother, Jane, was then left to find ways of keeping the family afloat and of reinventing herself when she, too, was middle-aged.
This shared history launches into details about Dickinson's marriage and her husband's infidelity, their divorce, raising a child as a single mother, dating hazards and career shifts, and how she ultimately longed for "home." She craved the stability--along with the perils and fortunes--afforded by small-town living. Dickinson ultimately finds love and a soul mate, falling for Bruno, a divorced building contractor whose familial roots are as strong and deep--and often, as complicated--as hers. He is raising three teenage daughters on his own. En route to marriage, the couple's union poses challenges to their blended family, which faces intensive, multigenerational care-giving issues.
"Real life doesn't always reveal itself as neatly as a question sent in to an advice columnist," Dickinson admits. But the heartfelt honesty of her entertaining narrative--rife with contemporary dramas to which many readers will relate--makes for a compelling, hopeful portrait of a woman coming-of-middle-age with wit, aplomb and authenticity. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines
Shelf Talker: This memoir of self-discovery is about a divorced, middle-aged writer who resettles into the small town where she was raised.