title: Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress: Tales of Growing Up Groovy and Clueless
author:  Susan Jane Gilman 
description: Gilman's memoir of growing up on Manhattan's <i>upper</i> Upper West Side in the '70s starts slowly but gathers momentum. Readers who find themselves drifting during Gilman's reveries on lying during show-and-tell will find themselves pleasantly riveted by the time she's getting in touch with her roots as a reporter for the <i>Jewish Week</i>. Gilman, author of 2001's <i>Kiss My Tiara</i>, a women's self-help guide, makes common scenarios fresh with humor and wry social commentary; on the first day of school, she quickly learns "boys might be fighters, but girls could be terrorists." Gilman's ear for dialogue is dead-on. When her brother asks their dad why their Jewish family celebrates Christmas, she doesn't miss a beat: " 'Because your grandmother's a Communist and your mother loves parties,' said my father. 'Now eat your supper.' " These one-liners don't detract, however, from a serious and moving look at one family's efforts to keep itself intact through divorce and other life challenges. After her parents separate, Gilman, then in her mid-20s, fears she and her brother had spent their childhoods in happy oblivion while their parents were "spellbound with misery." Probably not: Gilman's recollections of moving bumpily toward adulthood are keenly observant. She's nicely made the leap from self-help to narrative nonfiction. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  Miss Rodney's Leisure  
    
  
  
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  # Miss Rodney's Leisure
  
  
  ### George Gissing
  
  
  
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A young woman of about eight-and-twenty, in tailor-made costume, with
  unadorned hat of brown felt, and irreproachable umbrella; a young woman who
  walked faster than anyone in Wattleborough, yet never looked hurried; who
  crossed a muddy street seemingly without a thought for her skirts, yet somehow
  was never splashed; who held up her head like one thoroughly at home in the
  world, and frequently smiled at her own thoughts. Those who did not know her
  asked who she was; those who had already made her acquaintance talked a good
  deal of the new mistress at the High School, by name Miss Rodney. In less than
  a week after her arrival in the town, her opinions were cited and discussed by
  Wattleborough ladies. She