Anthropology of an American Girl

I love the world of books, and love to read, but have precious little time to do it. Ten minutes here, ten minutes there, standing in line somewhere. I am a fast reader, but it takes me a long time to read a book at that rate. So I'm very selective about those I choose. I'm going to be spending my valuable time on them so I seek out the very best of my favorite genres.


Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann

This is my favorite kind of book. It’s women’s fiction, longer than average, written in first person / present tense, and while plainly told, has moments of pure beauty, and thoughts that mirror my own so precisely that I feel a complete kindred with the author. And it made me cry, which always gets bonus points from me.

I first heard of this book on Oprah’s site. I haven’t seen her show in years (I rarely watch TV), but I follow her book suggestions faithfully, and I like to read the articles where celebrities say a few words about books that moved them. My favorite thing about Oprah is that she has supported literature unequivocally all these years. She has a stellar book team.

The title of this book “Anthropology of an American Girl” caught my eye. It was women’s fiction, for sure. My favorite genre. I can’t say I like the cover much, with apologies to Leanne Shapton. On the other hand, I understand the design. It does fit the book.

Another factor in my interest was its size (600 pages) and that it was originally self-published, and did well. I was fairly certain then that it was a wonderful story that publishers feared because it was more than 100,000 words in length. Acquiring an agent (much less a good one at an important agency) and becoming published by a major house is a significant life achievement. An author goes into the effort handicapped by being self-published, so it is doubly difficult for her. Already, I was hooked, and hadn’t read the first word, yet.

When a title has intrigued me, I always go to the jacket cover to see what the story is about. After I read this one, I still wasn’t sure. I had visions of the Query Shark chomping it to bits. There’s supposed to be a couple plot points in there, a twist, and then something to up the stakes. There’s none of that. But elsewhere on the jacket, I see the Library Journal is calling the author the “Henry James of the twenty-first century.” The story is being compared to “Catcher in the Rye,” and described as a “modern Jane Eyre.” Also, “a stunning novel to read and reread.”

That’s pretty high cotton.
So I guessed this woman could really write.

Oh, yeah. She can.

This novel reads like the memoir of Eveline (an annoying name—like my own—as I never knew how to pronounce it) “Evie” Auerbach, a young woman growing up in the tailwinds of the summer of love and sailing right into the Decade of Greed. That was of enormous interest to me, having been only a few years older than she. I was anxious to see how Thayer Hamann would capture those times. Subtly, and extremely well, is how she did it. Her descriptions are low-key and dribbled throughout, such as mentions of Jack writing on her jeans, and playing the White Album. The high school halls and the high school girls. Those were perfect. Evie is written with such clear voice, I knew without being told that she thought the squealing girls at the end of the hall were silly. I knew her. All my best friends in high school were her.

Evie is cool but I don’t think she knows it. That is not to say she lacks self-esteem. She is both strong and fragile. She is self-sufficient. Her single mother is a young, attractive hippie with a social conscience who provided her with plenty of freedom, trust, and privacy. Her father is a working man. She is actually lucky that way, but she wishes for a few more financial advantages. Not necessarily for material things, but for the luxury of having less struggle, and to have a clearer direction in life. She is intelligent and deep. A Scorpio, I’ll bet; Sagittarius would have taken the trip to Europe first.

I fell in love with the characters of this book, especially Jack, her boyfriend. Let me ask you, if you are a baby boomer, a teen who grew up in the Beatles Decades, did you not have a boyfriend like Jack? Her description of him is so right on. “Jack was handsome in a seedy and purposeful way, the way a barn in disrepair looks so good in the middle of a lush green field.” Everyone knew a guy back then who was filled with teenage angst: a young musician, talented guitar player, too intelligent and philosophical for his own good. A guy who knew the blues. Jack is a sweet, memorable anti-hero, poignantly written.

So what is Evie to do when she meets Harrison Rourke—a man, not a boy—a drama coach / slash / Olympic boxer, on loan to her school, off limits to her, except that nothing could keep them apart? The description of the first time she saw him is too long for fair use, and I wouldn’t dream of taking any of it from context, but it is sharp and hot. Parts of it are brilliant, and part of it is also very similar to something I wrote in my own novel (I should probably say that here, because you never know what can happen in the future.)

At its core, this is a love story of passion, longing and waiting.

I knew exactly how Evie felt in her devotion to Rourke. I shared her awe as she stepped in the same hallowed place he had once left footprints, and at the measure of his height on a door frame as he grew from a boy to a man. She truly loved him. Maybe those expressions of longing are universal—I’ve had similar ones—but I had never seen them expressed by anyone else, nor read them anywhere, even in books about grief.

I loved Rourke’s friend, Rob, too. It only took one New Jersey accent to fly from his mouth for me to hear it for the rest of the story. We all need a friend like Rob, but few of us deserve to have him.

Kate was perfect as Evie’s high school best friend: vain and shallow, a girl who expected life to treat her well. She didn’t even have to think about whether or not it would; it was simply a birthright that came with beauty.

If there is an antagonist in this story, it is Mark. I don’t know how many of us knew "him" back in the day. He came from the kind of wealth that doesn’t cruise a pickup down Main Street in Kansas, or joyride across delta swamps. He is exclusive to Wall Street. His is a world of Mercedes and Porsches, skiing in Aspen, and European getaways. The glittering world of coke and nightclubs. Though Evie shares his world, his bed, and his money, in her heart, she is always waiting for Rourke to make his comeback.

5 Bookmarks (for an explanation of my bookmark system, click here)