This Day in the Life
Diaries from Women Across America
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Did You Ever Want to Read a Friend’s Diary?
In suburban neighborhoods and on family farms, in uptown lofts and homeless shelters, women across America chronicled their lives on the same day—June 29, 2004. This Day in the Life shares more than thirty complete diaries and hundreds of additional candid moments.
Full of intimate details and laugh-out-loud truths, and drawing on the experiences of women of all ages and backgrounds, this diverse collection is a surprising reminder of how much we all have in common. If you’ve ever wondered what the woman standing in front of you in line was thinking, This Day in the Life is a refreshing glimpse at how we really spend our days—and the value of every single one.
7:03 a.m. Carryn wakes to nurse and I want to sleep. My husband pretends not to hear her, but sometimes I wake him up just so he can see my job is twenty-four hours a day. —Jenee Guidry, 30, mom of four
8:20 a.m. I just read two Psalms aloud to Dad. In the last few months of his life he loved for me to read them to him, both in person and on the phone. I still do it, hoping they reach him in the other world. —Rosanne Cash, 49, singer/songwriter
4:00 p.m. The cast of Friends is on with Oprah. That was one of the few shows I watched every week. My real friends suck. Not a single one called me on my birthday. —Kim Olsovsky, 31, teacher
1915 There’s a boom in the distance, rocket or mortar. I am sitting next to a blast wall built from sandbags. Do I stay here? Do I go into the trailer and lie on the floor? Six minutes pass. I am about to miss dinner. —Beth Garland, 42, army sergeant
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
There is not one piece in this compilation that is not captivating. Following up on the editors' first collection of journal entries published in 2003, they selected 34 diaries out of 493 submissions written by a cross-section of American women on June 29, 2004. The collection's success rests on both the astonishing variety of participants and the sincerity with which they describe an ordinary day. Connie Linnell Ambrose-Gates, a 79-year-old who married her high school sweetheart when she was over 60, spends many hours attending to her husband, who is now on dialysis, and despite the physical and emotional toll, she is grateful for this very good day. Musician and songwriter Rosanne Cash, daughter of the late Johnny Cash, beautifully expresses the grief she will always feel over the loss of her father. A unique contribution comes from Laraine Harper, manager of a legal brothel outside Las Vegas, who details the minutiae of running a business and looking after her working girls in a responsible manner. African-American writer Crystal Wilkinson relates typical conflicts with her two teenage daughters as well as her ambivalence about moving from her Kentucky home to a new job in Indiana. These women communicate bravery, compassion, humor and perseverance in this compulsively readable volume.
