Anne Hull

When I read the review of this book from the NYT I tagged it as one I’d like to read. Then my husband surprised me by buying tickets to hear the author speak when we were down in St. Petersburg, Florida. The tickets came with a book. Anne Hull was charming and funny, and I spent the rest of the week’s vacation reading this unique story.

Hull grew up in and around Plant City, Florida, smack in the middle of the state, in the 1960s and 70s. Her father was an orange grower - they owned 13 show more acres - and we meet Anne at about age 6, shortly before she entered school, riding shotgun with her father while he inspected the groves. Hull is able to give us an understanding of what central Florida was like before Disney and others began developing it. It sounds miserable to me - mosquitos, gators, poverty. Hull spends a good amount of time describing life for this little 6-year-old girl, both in the wild groves and at home. Her parents’ marriage was slowly unraveling, mainly due to her father’s alcoholism. Eventually her parents divorced, and her mother remarried - another unfortunate marriage. The result of this tumult was that Anne and her brother (Dwight/Jim) had to make their way in the world. This was complicated by Anne’s discovery that she was gay - not an easy thing to deal with in central Florida in that era.

The book is filled with details that make it so memorable. Beautifully written. I’m hoping there’s a sequel coming soon. show less

I loved this book! I found it difficult to put down. Anne Hull is an amazing writer. The reader is immediately transmitted to 1960s central Florida- to a place known as The Ridge. Life surrounds the orange groves that cover that part of the state. Her father, a former pesticide salesman, now in the orange juice business, takes Anne with him on his route. (This was her teacher-mother's idea, in order to make sure her dad didn't wind up drinking or in places he should not have been.)

We meet show more Hull's family in all their eccentric glory. Her father grew up on The Ridge in a family of orange growers. Her mother had come from up north with her own mother- a woman who spoke in a foreign accent although she was American. There is also her easy-going brother Dwight, whose name the family decides to change to Jim later in the story.

As her coming-of-age story unwinds, Hull takes us back to the 1960s and early 1970s: The Jackson Five, bell bottoms, shopping malls, Tiger Beat Magazine. Her family often struggled financially as they moved around central Florida following her mother's teaching jobs and her father's life in the Groves.

As Hull moves through her teen years, she begins to come to terms with her homosexuality, eventually realizing that she would eventually have to leave the Groves in order to live her life as she chose.

This is a moving memoir that took me back to my own years in the south in the 1970s. I highly recommend it.

Read this book if...
...you love biographies and memoirs
...you love stories from the southern states
...you enjoy coming-of-age stories
... you enjoy stories about family show less

4.5 stars. This was a quick read, but the vivid descriptions of her family members and growing up spending time with grandparents felt very familiar to me. Growing up in Central Florida in the 60s felt like a very colorful upbringing.

Sort of interesting. Not sure why we care about her life in particular