A friend at church recommended this one. It came up somehow because I mentioned reading Child's My Life in France, loving it, and being disappointed by Julie and Julia. This is a kick. It is part of series of books on Kick-Ass Women. Other entrants are Coco Chanel, Georgia O'Keefe, and Katherine Hepburn.
The reviews on Amazon complained because it was as much about the writer as the subject. Well, it was, but I didn't see that as a problem. It isn't biography, it was more about how this writer engaged with her subject. She did a tremendous amount of research, but produced a work that is anything but pedantic. She left me wanting to find and read some of her resource material.
Another complaint was that the footnotes were unnecessary - they could have been included in the text. True, but, in spite of the inconvenience of reading footnotes on my kindle, I think it worked. I think she uses footnotes to actually emphasize some of the remarks found there. If I choose this one for my next turn in book club, I will tell them to be absolutely certain that they never skip a footnote. Another book, the one I am reading in the bathroom, uses footnotes similarly. The passages that have reduced me to giggles and carrying the book down the hall to read to my daughter have all been from footnotes. Bathroom books go much more slowly, it will probably be a week or two before I finish it.
As I said, this is not a biography. It is very roughly chronological in presentation, but it is more tied to threads which ran through Child's life as perceived by Karbo: Julia Child Rules - rules for living. What emerges is Karbo's personal portrait of Child and how Child's life informs her own.
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