Zippy

A few days ago I read a memoir called A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel. I would like to think I discovered this book but sadly it is not so. Although not an Oprah pick it was Today Show Bookgroup Choice, whatever that is, I'm sure it's something lesser than Oprah but bigger than me. Anyway the author tells of growing up in a tiny town of 300 people in Indiana and although it all sounds very cute it has an edge to it that saves it. It is told through the eyes of a child and so the depressed mother sitting on the couch for days on end eating pork rinds and reading science fiction is not depressed or wondered about, but just there and if you want a hug you go snuggle up to her on the couch among the pork rind crumbs and she absently hugs you never taking her eyes off the book. The father who leaves guns all over the house, who gambles and drinks heavily is still adored, unquestioned and unjudged. Zippy is a very active, passionate little girl and the writing is very funny about pet chickens, school friends, neighbors and attending Quaker church.
There is more going on but like a child you only see what's at your own level. It reminds me of Lyra in the Golden Compass. Philip Pullman said the Dark Materials trilogy echoed a child's waking into adolescence. The first book is still set firmly in childhood, Lyra still selfish and self absorbed, the world goes only as far as she can see. Then in the second there is Will and the begining of life beyond Lyra and in the final Amber Spyglass it's the whole world, ripped open and exposed and huge. I just got Haven Kimmel's second book, a sequel She Got Up Off the Couch and in it Zippy's a little older and the parents are seen in a different light. The dysfunction only hinted at in the first book is much more apparent. The father's agressiveness and anger and the mother's neglect are acknowledged finally and you begin to filter all the old stories through a new lense. It reminds you of how accepting and loving children are.
Even if I'm not Oprah or the Today show I recommend them.