Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories - Hardcover

Holland, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151004420 ISBN 13: 9780151004423

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999

Synopsis

Liquor cabinets, suntans, clotheslines, childhood, world wars, pianos . . . What do these things have in common? They are all headed the way of the dinosaurs. Children are opting out of childhood, liquor cabinets and pianos have vanished from homes, and unimpressive mini wars are the norm. In Wasn't the Grass Greener?, Barbara Holland shares her sentiments on this deplorable but inevitable outcome, as she moans and groans, wistfully remembers, and sarcastically decries the state of the world today. With a style reminiscent of E.B. White and a wit like Erma Bombeck's, Barbara Holland's short, sharp, and all-original essays are laugh-out-loud funny, whether or not you share her memories. An engaging reminder of the past, Wasn't the Grass Greener? is a straight-up collection of a curmudgeon's complaints with a shot of nostalgia on the side.

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Holland is the author of several books, including Endangered Pleasures and Bingo Night at the Fire Hall. She has written for the Washington Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Smithsonian, Mid-Atlantic Country, Utne Reader, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Parents, and more. She lives in Loudoun County, Virginia.

From Kirkus Reviews

Using the art of the essaya form Dr. Johnson called ``a loose sally of the mind''Holland (Endangered Pleasures, 1995) presents miscellaneous reveries of past delights. Though it may help, one is not obliged to be a geezer to be captured by the charm of most of Holland's ardent recollections. Not long ago, she convinces us, the grass was emerald green, the sky bright azure. Her concerns include funny old customs like greeting passersby from front porches and sending telegrams to transmit big news. Gone are America's great factories and grand department stores. Do people still gather round pianos to sing? Do windows still open to unregulated ambient air? Are things mended anymore? What happened to liquor cabinets? What happened to poems that scanned and rhymed and were memorized? What happened to us? If all this sounds reactionary, perhaps it is; or perhaps its just nostalgia. The essay ``Homogeneity'' might (unfairly) be read as regressive. Maybe that is simply an inherent danger in a testament to a time not so long ago when, in nicely observed retrospect, things seemed a lot better. Once, all we had to worry about was atomic destruction. Now, along with proper disposal of plastic wrapping and kids' unsupervised play, we worry about the air that contaminates our toothbrushes. The author remembers ``when people who thought germs were nesting in their toothbrushes got slammed into psychotherapy.'' The 33 ruminative essays collected here vary in length and topic from the sublime (``Falling in Love'' and ``Art,'' scarcely two pages each) to the mundane (``Radiators,'' more than four pages and ``Worries,'' more than ten pages). Nostalgia, naturally, is tricky. Its appealing to those who share the recalled pleasures and puzzling to their juniors. This collection, fitting stylistically somewhere between E.B. White and Andy Rooney, should rightfully be taken as a time capsule instructive to younger generations, a source of amazement to those yet unborn. Here's a felicitous loose sally concerning common practices that have passed largely without notice. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0151004420
• ISBN 13: 9780151004423
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 235