A title, cover photo, and story that compels reading
I came across Miss Aluminum: A Memoir by Susanna Moore when I saw it as a recently read book by someone I follow on Goodreads; the title and book cover were very intriguing to me. I had never heard of Susanna Moore before, but after reading Wikipedia, searching Google images of her, and watching two of her interviews on YouTube, I became very interested in learning more. I was struck with her extraordinary fragile haunting beauty as a young woman in the photo on the book cover, her harrowing life journey, and her dispassionate, almost clinical manner of processing and filtering her experiences in the world, largely through a number of books she has written, many to significant acclaim. The title choice of this memoir is arresting; who has ever heard of a “Miss Aluminum,” and how would that stack up against the gold and silver titles? I have rarely found a book title and cover photo that so strongly compelled me to learn the story between its pages.
Moore narrates her audiobook in a precise, detached, and unemotional fashion, almost as though a PTSD victim wandering, dazed, through a dream. She enunciates beautifully, is easily understood, and a memoir or autobiography read by the author adds a special layer of insight and interest that simply reading the book can’t provide. She also has an outstanding vocabulary, and there were two words I had to look up while reading; it is a pleasure for me to hear the English language spoken with such a diversity of word choice, something I lament appears to be a dying art. The thing most striking throughout her memoir is her achingly poignant powers of observation, and her reflections on the past in an often self deprecating manner. It is a lifetime of world and self contemplation, processed and distilled with staggering clarity.
Susanna describes growing up surrounded by adults who view parenting or child care as delivering at birth, providing a roof, bed, clothing, and food, but needing no such distraction from their own grownup life pursuits and passions. Most of the “over 30” crowd she encounters in her youth know what’s best for her without really bothering to find out what it is she wants. Despite the affecting upbringing she describes, her solace in reading many books, reinforced by stories she hears from well funded travelers to off the beaten path locations, awakens a drive inside her to seek out as much of life’s singular breathtaking beauty and moments as time will allow, hungry to personally savor them, almost as though wanting to experience them for those she encountered, whose lives were cut short.
Susanna went through a heartrending period in her life after her mother died when she wanted to rescue anyone in danger for their lives. She had been unable to save her own mother, but for a time after her loss she remained hyper-vigilant anytime out in the world for others in her frame of reference who might need rescuing. She describes the impact of her mother’s death, a powerful recurring theme in her life, years later, “My longing for my mother, ceaseless and untiring, was so fearful that I sometimes wondered if I could bear it. If I was awakened at night by the slightest sound—a dog barking or a branch brushing across a window—I would sit up and call her name, Anne...”
Much of the book is a riveting and meticulously detailed account of numerous celebrities and the culturati populating Hollywood and New York during the 60s through the late 70s; her first hand experiences expose lives few have the opportunity to observe firsthand. The initial chapters of the memoir evoke a profound sadness for her earlier life, later supplemented by an admiration for her ability to survive, and a respect for the multifaceted richness of experience her early adulthood encompassed. I will definitely be reading her earlier books.
Moore narrates her audiobook in a precise, detached, and unemotional fashion, almost as though a PTSD victim wandering, dazed, through a dream. She enunciates beautifully, is easily understood, and a memoir or autobiography read by the author adds a special layer of insight and interest that simply reading the book can’t provide. She also has an outstanding vocabulary, and there were two words I had to look up while reading; it is a pleasure for me to hear the English language spoken with such a diversity of word choice, something I lament appears to be a dying art. The thing most striking throughout her memoir is her achingly poignant powers of observation, and her reflections on the past in an often self deprecating manner. It is a lifetime of world and self contemplation, processed and distilled with staggering clarity.
Susanna describes growing up surrounded by adults who view parenting or child care as delivering at birth, providing a roof, bed, clothing, and food, but needing no such distraction from their own grownup life pursuits and passions. Most of the “over 30” crowd she encounters in her youth know what’s best for her without really bothering to find out what it is she wants. Despite the affecting upbringing she describes, her solace in reading many books, reinforced by stories she hears from well funded travelers to off the beaten path locations, awakens a drive inside her to seek out as much of life’s singular breathtaking beauty and moments as time will allow, hungry to personally savor them, almost as though wanting to experience them for those she encountered, whose lives were cut short.
Susanna went through a heartrending period in her life after her mother died when she wanted to rescue anyone in danger for their lives. She had been unable to save her own mother, but for a time after her loss she remained hyper-vigilant anytime out in the world for others in her frame of reference who might need rescuing. She describes the impact of her mother’s death, a powerful recurring theme in her life, years later, “My longing for my mother, ceaseless and untiring, was so fearful that I sometimes wondered if I could bear it. If I was awakened at night by the slightest sound—a dog barking or a branch brushing across a window—I would sit up and call her name, Anne...”
Much of the book is a riveting and meticulously detailed account of numerous celebrities and the culturati populating Hollywood and New York during the 60s through the late 70s; her first hand experiences expose lives few have the opportunity to observe firsthand. The initial chapters of the memoir evoke a profound sadness for her earlier life, later supplemented by an admiration for her ability to survive, and a respect for the multifaceted richness of experience her early adulthood encompassed. I will definitely be reading her earlier books.
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