Reasonable People

"Television comedies are full of teenagers who roll their eyes at their mothers or fathers and beg them not to do something embarrassing. She can't imagine her parents doing anything to embarrass her. ... They're reasonable people."

The she in this pseudonymous memoir is Anne Lang, born into a stable, solidly middle class family, a child of the pre-feminist 1950s and turbulent '60s. Anne's seemingly prosaic life as she grows up in those disparate decades is revealed in snapshot fashion with the objectivity and intimacy of a hidden camera.

The influence of parents, however reasonable, only goes so far in determining who an individual will become. Anne's moral choices, her pride, stubbornness, and jealousy are primarily her own.

In contemporary literature, memoirists divulge their momentous secrets, the traumas and betrayals suffered in dysfunctional families and a judgmental world. Anne's secrets are smaller and probably more common than she knows but all the more tormenting because such things are seldom spoken of or written about. Readers will recognize within themselves the very thoughts Anne hides and may find comfort in learning that they are shared.