Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir

Additional Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir Information

Wait Till Next Yearis the story of a young girl growing up in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, when owning a single-family home on a tree-lined street meant the realization of dreams, when everyone knew everyone else on the block, and the children gathered in the streets to play from sunup to sundown. The neighborhood was equally divided among Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans, and the corner stores were the scenes of fierce and affectionate rivalries.

We meet the people who influenced Goodwin's early life: her father, who emerged from a traumatic childhood without a trace of self-pity or rancor and who taught his daughter early on that she should say whatever she thought and should bring her voice into any conversation at any time; her mother, whose heart problems left her with the arteries of a seventy-year-old when she was only in her thirties and whose love of books allowed her to break the boundaries of the narrow world to which she was confined by her chronic illness; her two older sisters; her friends on the block; the local storekeepers; her school friends and teachers.

This is also the story of a girlhood in which the great religious festivals of the Catholic church and the seasonal imperatives of baseball combined to produce a passionate love of history, ceremony, and ritual. It is the story of growing up in what seemed on the surface a more innocent era until one recalls the terror of polio, the paranoia of McCarthyism reflected even in the children's games, the obsession with A-bomb drills in school, and the ugly face of racial prejudice. It was a time whose relative tranquillity contained the seeds of the turbulent decade of the sixties.

What Customers Say About Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir:

More than just a story about baseball - a story about growing up in the fifties. Families, friends and neighborhoods. A very nostalgic look back into time. Excellent.

My book arrived quickly but was more "beaten up" than I expected from the product preview.

Goodwin is a prolific historian, and the book is truly an achievement. Her characters have a poignant humanity with all its heroic and fallible qualities. The book is a long one, but if you're interested in the subject matter, there's no one better than Doris Kearns Goodwin to hear it from.

They enjoyed the game together and had great moments of bonding via the Dodgers' trials and tribulations. Doris Kearns Goodwin, more popularly known as an historian, has written a moving memoir of her childhood in Long Island as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Their story mirrors the story of many readers who deepen their bonds with their children via following their favorite teams.The reader gets a detailed view of the tight knit community from a secular perspective, but also from Kearn's Catholic upbringing. Admittedly insular, her upbringing in Rockville Center was one filled mostly with joy, but with a dark shadow cast by her mothers ailing health. Her father, a New York State bank examiner (boy could we use him now), was a great Dodgers fan, as was Kearns. As Anne Rice does in Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, Kearns evokes the visceral power of pre-Vatican II Catholicism, in its rites and rituals, as well as in its daily living.Kearns acknowledges the shortcomings and anxieties of the era: the de facto segregation in her community's housing and schools, the threat of nuclear war during the Cold War, as well as the impact of McCarthyism. These are the backdrops of her baseball stories, from her detailed scorecard keeping, to her meeting Jackie Robinson and Gil Hodges, to the perennial loses in the World Series to Yankees, the rivalry with the Giants, and the Dodgers' series win in 1955.This is obvioulsy more than just a baseball fans memoir; it is also a moving memoir about life in the 1950's, and specially about the relationship between a father and his daughter.

She gives an account of meeting one of her favorite Dodgers at a local Episcopal church. In the 40s, the marble rotunda at the entrance to Ebbets Field looked like a train station in a dream.

Thanks to Daniel I became aware that half of my review was deleted. Perhaps it just didn't get on, so I will try again.

Rats abound where least expected. Most of the photos feature Brooklyn Dodgers baseball memorabilia.

This is an account of a girl's devotion to a mascaline activity as promoted by her dad.This book has family pictures from albums and yearbooks but most of the photos feature Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team of the '50s. She led a charmed life but dwelled on baseball throughout this memoir in particular the Brooklyn Dodgers."As I did with the lives of those around me, I could incorporate the people of fiction, even of history, into my own life, make them real." A diehard Dodgers fan from childhood, she names her memoir with the team's anthem, "Wait till next year." The book is full of family pictures, using albums and yearbooks to show the individuals being remembered.

There was always a fierce rivalry with the Yankees to win the World's Series, as she remembers rooting for her team. "The warmth of his broad smile was all I needed to know that this was a night I would not forget."