IVY DAYS: Making My Way Out East

by Susan Allen Toth ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 17, 1984

Like Blooming (1981), Toth's memoir of her Iowa childhood: warm, shrewd, pleasant but uncompelling reminiscences--this time centering on the Iowa innocent's college days at Smith, class of '61. Culture-shock was inevitable for a Midwestern freshman: the real "" 'Smithies'. . . were not dressed quite as Mademoiselle had promised me""--and, like other non-wealthy students, Susan had to settle for ""the rumpled, dirty look that I thought was my only alternative to Green Street."" Still, despite an initial bout of intense, secret homesickness, she fell in love with the East: the money, the campus ponds, the College Boathouse. Her new ""home"" was Lawrence House--where all 57 girls were on scholarship, where the weekly menu was a starchy, reliable comfort, where House Meetings and roommates offered sisterhood at its coziest. (Not that there weren't tensions--especially in the overcrowded laundry room.) Through friends Susan discovered Metrecal, Passover, the ocean. Through classes she discovered that she preferred literature to history, that art-appreciation could be a ""manic-depressive experience"" in the hectic Art 11 program (""exams were shock treatments""). There were disastrous blind dates, disastrous attempts at creative writing (one blunt teacher wrote ""Oh, God!"" in the margin), a developing dependency on cigarettes ""to lighten tedious moments, relax tension, and interrupt routine."" And finally, after the grave disappointment of a Magna instead of a Summa, Susan found still other horizons in Boston--and is last seen heading off to Berkeley grad-school and ill-fated marriage. Despite a few touching moments, the emotional content is very slight here; despite some rather heavyhanded flash-forwards to Toth at 40, her underlying themes (primarily the sisterhood motif) emerge only spottily. But as a deep-dish evocation of undergraduate life at its bygone best (eye-opening, communal, broadening yet somehow pure), this is fine, nostalgic fare--even for those not among the Seven Sisters.

Pub Date: May 17, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION