Review:
Following the effective formula she established in her classic memoir Nothing to Declare, Mary Morris mingles travel in an exotic landscape--well, Southern California is exotic if you're from New York City by way of suburban Chicago--with memories of a troubled past and a frank description of current personal difficulties. In Angels & Aliens, Morris moves to Orange County in 1988 with her infant daughter, Kate, whose father has remained behind on the East Coast, unwilling either to marry Morris or let her go. As is often the case with one-sided accounts of relationships on the rocks, it's hard to imagine what the author sees in her selfish, controlling lover; most readers will cheer when she finally forces him to lay his emotional and financial cards on the table. Her account of life in La-La Land has predictable moments (freeway driving as existential statement, crystal-wielding massage therapists), but Morris is surprisingly nonjudgmental about oddball cults like the Crystal Cathedral, which flies six parishioners/angels overhead in its annual Christmas pageant, and Uforum, which runs a support group for people convinced they have been abducted by aliens. No matter how strange the behavior, Morris's sharp, stripped-down language makes it recognizably human. --Wendy Smith
From the Publisher:
"Mary Morris combines a hunger for transcendence with wry self-mockery. Her subtle, unobtrusive craft beautifully stitches together past and present, hope and disenchantment, insight and narrative." --Phillip Lopate
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