On the third day of January, 1972, a 12-year-old girl waiting out her Christmas vacation entered the following status report in a diary she had started on New Year's Day: 'œMy name is Margaret Earline Sartor. I'm in the seventh grade at Robert E. Lee High in Montgomery, La., the United States of America, the Earth, the Universe. I am bored to death.' Fortunately, Margaret carried on. By Jan. 26, she had turned to 'œmaking a table out of old beer cans.' By May 7, she was focused on a boy named Cliff. By March 15, 1974, she was kissing a boy named Chris good night at the front door and wondering how God felt about the whole thing. On Aug. 8 of that year, she was less pensive: 'œPresident Nixon resigned. Made appointment to get my hair cut.'
Miss American Pie is 'œthe most amazing book,' said Carolyn See in The Washington Post. Essentially a pared-down version of six years of Sartor's diaries, it's more than a 'œportrait' of adolescence: 'œIt is adolescence.' When history makes an appearance, it arrives unfiltered. The 1970s' 'œgreat resurgence of Protestant evangelism' in the South descends on the neighbors' living room and sets Margaret to speaking in tongues and prowling for boys at prayer meetings. You can't help but love her. She's a 'œtough little tomboy,' a contemplative homecoming queen, and a comic heroine, 'œreal as snakes.'
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The marvelous powers of mucusThe Explainer It's snot just a pesky cold symptom
-
What to know about the 'no tax on tips' policyThe Explainer The new bill would make tip income exempt from federal income taxes
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study findsSpeed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”