From Publishers Weekly
"Like Gaul, my life is divided into three parts: before Tom, with Tom, and after Tom," writes Campion of her late husband. Now 87, the author (
Mother Ann Lee: Morning Star of the Shakers) looks back at her life, in particular lovingly immortalizing her 59-year marriage to Tom Campion, who was director of production for the
New York Times and later vice-chancellor of UMass. at Amherst. In an upbeat, buoyant if superficial style, Campion recounts an essentially happy upper-middle-class life with a good-humored husband and five children. She's at her best describing the diverting ups and downs of their life together, such as the time she had to cook dinner for
Times food critic Craig Claiborne and a reception the couple attended at the Clinton White House. An army brat raised in Kansas and the Panama Canal Zone, Campion grew up with a talent for making the best of things. Although she clearly revered her parents, she is forthright about their anti-Semitism, which ruined her older sister's marriage plans. The author also describes her despair over that sister's death many years later and the difficulty of coping with a son's emotional breakdown. Interestingly, despite her family's military background, Campion became a pacifist in college, but makes little mention of how her political beliefs evolved in later life. 22 b&w photos.
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Kurzbeschreibung
This is the story of a life that has spanned much of the twentieth century. It is the story of a long and happy marriage, of advances in women's rights, of forging a career as a writer (including the excitement of a big Hollywood film sale), of the sometimes bewildering pace of progress, and of raising a family in a rapidly changing world. With her wit, insightful storytelling, and keen ear for offbeat anecdotes, Nardi Reeder Campion speaks for a generation that has traveled from the roaring twenties into the twenty-first century. Campion's address to a reunion of her Wellesley College class of 1938 has earned her a niche in cyberspace. Endlessly circulated via e-mail and even featured in the Ann Landers column, it combines Campion's charm, wisdom, and self-deprecating humor. She has now written a memoir distinguished by those same qualities. Campion's memoir is, in part, the story of a long and loving marriage, one that lasted fifty-nine years and "survived four jobs, seven books, nine homes, and nineteen pets (not counting gerbils)." Whether she is describing the joys of marriage to a fun-loving husband or the pain of her son's emotional breakdown, the (sometimes mixed) blessings of grandchildren or the difficult decision to move into a retirement home, Campion's deft mix of humor and candor yields an appealing and engaging narrative. Always seeking to discover what is worthwhile, she writes movingly about love and about death.
