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Contributors | November 10, 2009

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Mommy Dressing a Love Story :copeland

by Lois Gould

Mommy Dressing a Love Story :copeland Cover

ISBN13: 9780385490542
ISBN10: 0385490542
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The unanimously acclaimed portrait of a bittersweet girlhood, capturing the glamour and cruelty of New York's fashion world in the middle of the century.

Exquisitely written and painfully observant, Mommy Dressing tells the story of self-made fashion star Jo Copeland, and the daughter who struggled to please her. Lois Gould paints a mesmerizing picture of the kingdom of movie stars, fashion shows, and steamer trunks her mother ruled, from the viewpoint of an isolated girl acutely conscious that she would never enter that glittering domain. Featuring full-page period illustrations, including original sketches and designs by Jo Copeland, Mommy Dressing is "a sidelong tribute from one survivor to another, written in a brisk, fluid style... [Gould's] memories--half stardust, half ashes--underscore the fact that glamour is not a child-friendly business" (Daphne Merkin, The New Yorker).

Review:

"A wrenchingly, beautifully written memoir." --The Washington Psot Book World

Review:

"Extraordinary...Dispassionate compassion is a vert moving quality, and it marks Mommy Dressing from beginning to end...The memoir's future depends on this new kind of 'I,' one as fluid and potent as 'Once upon a time.'" --Margo Jefferson, The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"Rendered in breathless, thrilling detail." --The Boston Globe

Review:

"In the era of smarmy memoirs that offer more by the way of indictment than insight, Lois Gould's Mommy Dressing stands apart." --The Wall Street Journal

Review:

"Gould generously sprinkles the acoount of her childhood with fascinating peeks at the world of high fashion and high society...If Auntie Mame was one of your all-time favorite movies, you'll love it." --The Houston Chronicle

Review:

"Gould captures the glamour and anguish of having a mother who knew everything about clothes and nothing about being a parent--and transforms the experience of a loveless childhood into a sharp, severe, but not unkind memoir." --Salon

About the Author

Lois Gould is the author of the novels Such Good Friends, A Sea-Change, Subject to Change, amd No Brakes. She lives in New York City.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
lsimeone, June 1, 2006 (view all comments by lsimeone)
Lois Gould's memoir of growing up as the daughter of American designer Jo Copeland strikes a rare balance. Gould's childhood was often harsh, lonely, and bewildering, yet also thrilling, if only in the looking-back on it. The creative juices flowing all around her were abundant, and must have informed her own artistic bent. Gould is a poetic writer, and while she doesn't flinch from revealing the nastier aspects of her childhood, she also doesn't fall into the oh-woe-is-me psychobabble so popular today. She comes to a hard-won understanding of and compassion for her beautiful, brittle, dazzlingly talented mother. The book is also a rich history of American social and political life in the first half of the 20th century. Highly recommended.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780385490542
Subtitle:
A Love Story, After a Fashion
Author:
Gould, Lois
Publisher:
Random House
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Biography
Subject:
Women
Subject:
Mothers and daughters
Subject:
Parental Memoirs
Edition Description:
Anchor Books
Publication Date:
October 1999
Binding:
Trade Paper
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
272
Dimensions:
7.94x5.14x.67 in. .40 lbs.

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