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My Family And Other Hazards: A Memoir (2014)

by June Melby(Favorite Author)

3.63 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0805098313 (ISBN13: 9780805098310)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Henry Holt and Co.

review 1: My 5-star review is biased. I grew up in the town this memoir takes place in, and played extensively upon this very course she describes. When she writes about a specific area of the course, or of Waupaca, I smile involuntarily;she is writing about something that I remember in vivid detail. But if you are the exact opposite of me, someone who has never been to central Wisconsin, or never knew the thrill of spending a summer afternoon on a mini golf course, I believe you will still enjoy this book.
review 2: When she was 10 years old, June Melby's schoolteacher parents bought a miniature golf course in Wisconsin. Every year thereafter, the family left their home in Iowa the day school let out and spent the summer operating the slightly down-at-the-heels family a... morettraction. As the book opens, Ms. Melby gets a phone call from her mother, who tells her that after thirty years, they're selling the golf course and retiring. The news sends the author back home to say her final goodbye to the place that defined her life for so many years.From the title of the book, I thought the story would be about the personalities in her family -- mother, father, three sisters. Her recollections are charming, but her family seems to be a very normal, Midwestern family with few eccentricities or even characteristics that stand out. Instead, the book focuses mainly on the golf course, the running of it and the customers who frequent the place. Each of the eighteen chapters is titled for one of the holes of the course.Ms. Melby doesn't delve deeply into her feelings about her lot in life. For the most part, she describes what her family's life was like -- the tedious and relentless work of keeping up an outdoor attraction -- instead of how she felt about it. I enjoyed the few times she recounted her own (tiny) rebellions and coming-of-age moments, and I would have appreciated it if, in the writing of the book, she had asked her parents and sisters what they thought of the family venture and identity. Here and there, she hints at what she imagines they might have been thinking. One day, when she and her mother take a swim in a freezing cold lake, her mother insists on making the best of it. "A person can get used to anything," she tells her daughter. Maybe that's the oblique way Midwesterners talk (and write) about their lives.Toward the end of her book, Ms. Melby talks briefly, but candidly, about her adult life, living in Hollywood, trying to make a go of it as a comedian and actress. I would have liked more of this inward focus; this is a memoir, after all. I never got a good sense of the author. Why did she get a degree in electrical engineering? When did she decide to take a stab at the stage? What is her personal life like? Does she feel like her childhood was enhanced or blighted by the golf course? Everything is just hinted at, but never explored. For instance, it seems that her parents had a very strong Christian faith, but the author doesn't delve into how it colored their lives or whether she wrestled with inheriting the family faith as well as its vocation. Her lack of faith as an adult just is.Of course, the title of this book reminded me of Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, an account of the author's eccentric English family who, on a whim similar to the Melby family's, move to the Greek island of Corfu. If it's colorful characters you want, Mr. Durrell's family will more than satisfy you. less

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