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A review by dreesreads
In the Country of Women by Susan Straight
5.0
I saw Susan Straight on a panel at the LA Times Festival of Books, shortly before this book was released. It has been on my radar ever since, though I have not read any of her other books. I found it on Hoopla (accidentally), and immediately checked it out.
This book is a love letter to her 3 adult daughters. It is history, biography, memoir, autobiography, family history. In particular she looks at all of the women who have led to their existing--her own Swiss-immigrant mother, who ran from a marriage to a local pig farmer arranged by her own stepmother, eager to get her out of the house. Her mother's mother, who died young. That stepmother, who did not like her stepchildren, but whose own children and nieces/nephews are happy to host their families and do consider them all family. Her high-school-sweetheart ex-husband's mother Alberta, a black woman from the south, and her many sisters and aunts and cousins. The events that led all of these women to Riverside, California, where they all ended up living in a 6-block area that Straight still lives in today.
The men are here too, but often they were difficult or died young or chose a second wife over their own children. Or they themselves fled a steparent when young, starting over with no family nearby. And many families had large families with more girls than boys, so those girls stuck together always, raising each others' children or providing shelter as needed.
Straight tells a fabulous story. Food, place, family. Fear, racial discrimination, police actions, friends that become family. Visiting her step-grandmother's family in Switzerland. Growing up poor, living in Riverside when a/c wasn't a thing, working in fields or factories. Loving to read and write and learn. It's all here, and it is all wonderful.
This book is a love letter to her 3 adult daughters. It is history, biography, memoir, autobiography, family history. In particular she looks at all of the women who have led to their existing--her own Swiss-immigrant mother, who ran from a marriage to a local pig farmer arranged by her own stepmother, eager to get her out of the house. Her mother's mother, who died young. That stepmother, who did not like her stepchildren, but whose own children and nieces/nephews are happy to host their families and do consider them all family. Her high-school-sweetheart ex-husband's mother Alberta, a black woman from the south, and her many sisters and aunts and cousins. The events that led all of these women to Riverside, California, where they all ended up living in a 6-block area that Straight still lives in today.
The men are here too, but often they were difficult or died young or chose a second wife over their own children. Or they themselves fled a steparent when young, starting over with no family nearby. And many families had large families with more girls than boys, so those girls stuck together always, raising each others' children or providing shelter as needed.
Straight tells a fabulous story. Food, place, family. Fear, racial discrimination, police actions, friends that become family. Visiting her step-grandmother's family in Switzerland. Growing up poor, living in Riverside when a/c wasn't a thing, working in fields or factories. Loving to read and write and learn. It's all here, and it is all wonderful.