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October 18, 2019 - Booked Solid by Terri Schlichenmeyer

A Wild and Precious LifeA Wild and Precious Life: A Memoir by Edie Windsor with Joshua Lyon
c.2019, St. Martin’s Press
$27.99/$37.99 Canada, 274 pages

There’s a long line of people behind you.

Some are afraid to be seen, to speak up, or to show up. Others don’t want to get involved, so they’re sitting this one out. One thing, though: they’re all watching to see what you do next because, as in the new memoir, A Wild and Precious Life by Edie Windsor with Joshua Lyon, someone’s got to be first.

There was never any doubt that little Edie Schlain was fiercely adored.

The youngest child of the family, Edie grew up wanting to be like her big sister, protected by her big brother, and the apple of her parents’ eyes. She admits that she was “spoiled” then, not in a bad way but just enough to give her the confidence and brass a child of the Depression might need.

She remembered the beginning of World War II, although not in the sense that most did: her recollections were of a houseful of boys, her brother’s friends, laughing and eating and gathering in her parents’ home before going off to war, and mourning when word arrived of those who’d never come home. Edie always liked boys and as she matured, she bantered with her brother’s friends although she occasionally thought it odd how much she liked watching other girls.

“The idea that anything physically intimate with a girl could happen simply did not exist,” she said.

But eventually, it did, with a tennis partner in college, then with a female roommate she loved before realizing that there was “no other available reality” than to fall into lockstep with other young women of the 1950s, settle down, and marry a nice man.

The marriage lasted six months.

At the end, Edie, who’d convinced her husband to adapt the surname “Windsor,” realized that she needed to tell him the truth. Pondering how to tell him, she immersed herself in Judy Garland “fantasy” musicals, and she planned:

“Guess what, Judy? I’m a lesbian.”

“If you’re looking to read about Edie’s Supreme Court case, put this down…” says co-author Joshua Lyon in his preface. But don’t be too hasty: A Wild and Precious Life has enough to offer, all by itself.

Indeed, though he still touches upon the fight that helped achieve marriage equality, Lyon says that Windsor “desperately wanted” readers to know about her pioneering work in computers and technology, which was a “core part of her identity” and of which she was enormously proud. In her words here, which Lyon indicates that she edited herself, Windsor also woos readers with breezy wit, racy love stories, and seemingly casual-not-casual, semi-nonchalant depictions of being a lesbian in the mid-twentieth century, and what it was like living in the shadows but flirting hard with the light.

Early in this book, Lyon says he fretted about how to finish it after Windsor died, but he needn’t have worried. Though its ending feels a little rushed, A Wild and Precious Life flows perfectly and entertains delightfully, making it a book you’ll want in front of you.▼

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. Always Overbooked, she lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 15,000 books.

‹ October 18, 2019 - CAMP Arts by Doug Yetter up October 18, 2019 - CAMP Critters ›

Past Issues

Issues Index

  • November 15, 2019 - Issue Index
  • October 18, 2019 - Issue Index
    • October 18, 2019 - Cover-to-cover with ISSUU
    • October 18, 2019 - The Way I See It by Murray Archibald
    • October 18, 2019 - In Brief
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMP Out by Fay Jacobs
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMP News
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMP Staff
    • October 18, 2019 - Live Theatre Strikes Again by Michael Gilles
    • October 18, 2019 - Sporty Gals by Anita Petit
    • October 18, 2019 - It's My Life by Michael Thomas Ford
    • October 18, 2019 - Ghosts Stories by Stefani Deoul
    • October 18, 2019 - Straight Talk by David Garrett
    • October 18, 2019 - Intentionally Inclusive by Wesley Combs
    • October 18, 2019 - Out & Proud by Stefani Deoul
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMP Cheers!
    • October 18, 2019 - The Real Dirt by Eric W. Wahl
    • October 18, 2019 - Eating OUT by Fay Jacobs
    • October 18, 2019 - Historical Headliners by Ann Aptaker
    • October 18, 2019 - Out & About by Eric C. Peterson
    • October 18, 2019 - Health and Wellness by Marj Shannon
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMPshots Gallery 1
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMPshots Gallery 2
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMPshots Gallery 3
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMPshots Gallery 4
    • October 18, 2019 - Community News
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMP Stories by Rich Barnett
    • October 18, 2019 - Film Festival
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMP Arts by Doug Yetter
    • October 18, 2019 - Booked Solid by Terri Schlichenmeyer
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMP Critters
    • October 18, 2019 - CAMP Dates - October 18 – December 1
  • September 20, 2019 - Issue Index
  • August 23, 2019 - Issue Index
  • August 9, 2019 - Issue Index
  • July 26, 2019 - Issue Index
  • July 12, 2019 - Issue Index
  • June 28, 2019 - Issue Index
  • June 14, 2019 - Issue Index
  • May 31, 2019 - Issue Index
  • May 17, 2019 - Issue Index
  • May 3, 2019 - Issue Index
  • April 12, 2019 - Issue Index
  • March 8, 2019 - Issue Index
  • February 8, 2019 - Issue Index

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