Ellen Smith had a solid and fairly unremarkable early childhood. Born and raised in the garden city of Reston, Virginia’s first open, integrated, and planned community, she started out as an obedient, if sometimes sparky, youth. It was not until her parents’ divorce (when she was eight years old) that she shifted from being a child who got good grades and respected authority to one who fought everything and anybody. Throughout it all, her parents showed patience and compassion, but as she writes: “Despite their exceptional capacity for forgiveness, offering me all the grace they could muster, I remained the epitome of trouble.”
MEMOIRS OF A SUBURBAN TROUBLEMAKER is a brisk and enjoyable coming-of-age tale that will resonate with many people who were brought up with divorced parents. Set against the backdrop of her strangely utopian hometown, Smith brings humor and the wisdom of passing years to the troublesome escapades of her youth.
Rather than a conventional narrative structure, the book comprises short anecdotal incidents in roughly chronological order. Gradually, these little stories build up a candid portrait of a young girl struggling with her parents’ divorce and the difficulties of growing up and fitting in. Smith’s strong personality and feisty outlook on life shine through, including facing down the stigma of an ill-advised outfit on the first day of seventh grade. She chose a hemp turtleneck, a satin cummerbund, and a muslin skirt combo. “It all might have been a little too sophisticated for a 13-year-old,” she writes. “I looked more like a librarian from the late 1800s than a tween in the late 1980s.” Later, she will attempt to explain away how she lost her house key by fabricating a preposterous tale of abduction: “I called the police from a neighbor’s house and told them that I had fled the grasp of a pedophile who tried to lure me into his kidnapper van at the playground. I described a crazy-eyed, seven-foot-tall, obese, white male […] who drove a white, windowless van.”
Though many of Smith’s school years’ stories are tinged with humor, things frequently darken as she grows up. Drugs, death, and depression cast a shadow. It is a testament to Smith’s resilience that she has overcome what life has thrown at her. By the end of her book, the story has become one of empowerment. Every battle that Smith has chosen, every spot of trouble she has found herself in, has led to her becoming the woman she is today. She writes: “I hope all the troublemakers reading this feel less alone in the world and are inspired to persevere and keep fighting the good fight.”
Ellen Smith’s MEMOIRS OF A SUBURBAN TROUBLEMAKER is an engrossing coming-of-age memoir. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, these anecdotes are always winningly candid.
~Kent Lane for IndieReader