CLASS PICTURES

Class pictures from kindergarten through high school are evoked along the way as a sort of unifying device for Pat's memories of her friendship with Lolly—a fat, blond, timid doctor's daughter and only child who is rejected by the other children but befriended by the stronger, popular Pat. Then in adolescence Lolly becomes pretty and popular with the boys, and feels forced into a mindless female role until she begins to assert herself as an environmental activist. Poor, fatherless Pat, on the other hand, is dateless but smart. She is goaded by Lolly's mother's unstated snobbery to aim for a career as a doctor, and then motivated by an encouraging male teacher and her own interest in science to enter MIT. Sachs' time exposure of personalities and lives in the making is smooth if slick; watching the girls develop has its interest, though Lolly especially is superficially drawn.