Aria Beth Sloss

Rebecca Madden and Alexandra Carrington meet in homeroom their freshman year of high school. Beautiful and vivacious Alex had just moved to Pasadena from Texas. Shy and studious Becky was as surprised as anyone when Alex asked to sit with her at lunch, but from the moment they met they were best friends. We found each other like two animals recognizing a similar species: noses raised, sniffing, alert.

The novel is told by an older Rebecca, relating her youth to her daughter. It’s a show more coming-of-age novel that is intensely personal and mimics the upheaval the country was undergoing in the 1960s – civil rights, Vietnam, women’s liberation. Raised in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, the girls chafe at the expectations of their mothers and go to college determined NOT to find husbands, but to succeed at their own dreams and ambitions. Breaking out of the mold is apparently easier for Alex than for Becky, but the results for both are much the same.

This is a character-driven novel. Told entirely from Rebecca’s viewpoint, it mostly explores her own awakening and maturing. In fact, Alex disappears from the story for a large part of it, as they finish college and wind up in different cities. But just as Alex awakened the 14-year-old Becky, it will be Alex who forces the adult Rebecca to recognize the truth of her life and spur her to take action.

The best way I can describe this novel is that it is atmospheric. Maybe that’s because I, too, was growing up in that era, and questioned the apparent expectations that society had for me. For our high school graduation, the PTA mothers gave each of us girls engraved formal calling cards (I still have the engraving plate). We had curfews in the college dorms, gentleman callers were confined to the formal sitting room which was always chaperoned, and all phone calls came through a central switchboard (which closed at 11p). Women were required to wear skirts to all meals in the college dining hall. It was a lifetime ago, and just a few moments ago. show less

Friendship isn’t easy. A friendship started in childhood has to grow and mature as do those in the relationship. No matter how dear someone is to you, there will be bumps in the road. Misunderstandings. Arguments. Hurts. But when a friendship is solid, it will weather these because it must. Aria Beth Sloss’s new novel, Autobiography of Us, is a tale of just such a friendship, one started young, one that must endure betrayal and estrangement, but one that ultimately knits itself back show more together because it is too hard, impossible really, to let it go.

Rebecca is a bit of a loner, quiet, introverted, smart, and scientifically minded. She’s always wanted to be a doctor, even though in the early 1960s in Pasadena, California, this is not a usual or likely goal for a girl. When she meets Alexandra, she is immediately drawn to Alex and she is thrilled to be chosen to be the magnetic Alex’s best friend. Alex is outgoing and a bit wild, popular and set on becoming an actress. When the two young women go off to college, they go as best of friends although they do start to drift apart on their different trajectories. While Rebecca is studious and single-minded about eventually going to medical school, Alex is much more social, collecting a coterie of friends. When Rebecca makes a mistake at a friends’ wedding, it shatters their long-standing friendship and changes Rebecca’s entire life trajectory. And it will take many years before the two women come back together again to tentatively rekindle their friendship.

The historical period of time during which the two of them come of age is well drawn and compelling. Sloss has set her novel in a time of great social upheaval when options for women were still constrained and narrow but were about to widen unimagineably. And in this still repressed setting with its seemingly immutable gender roles, Sloss tackles many difficult and contentious issues: abortion, abuse, adultery, mental illness. And she weaves all of this into a tale centered on the nature of friendship, what relationship can endure without cracking wide open and the lengths that a friend will go to, even if just in memory of what the friendship used to be.

Although the title of the book is Autobiography of Us, much of the book takes place when there is no us except in memory. Even in beginning, the "us" that there is is not quite convincing. The friendship between Rebecca and Alex often feels one-sided with Alex using Rebecca to bolster her own self-esteem, always enjoying the mild hero-worship of her friend, appreciating her built in audience. She’s selfish and demanding and difficult and yet Rebecca continues to love her as her very best friend, wanting, in a way, to be Alex or at least to be more like her. Neither of these women are particularly likable, except perhaps to each other. Rebecca is a doormat and Alex is manipulative, making it hard for the reader to feel much sympathy for either of them. There is little real depth to their friendship and it remains a mystery why these two are in fact as close as the story says. Told from Rebecca’s point of view, the narrative proceeds in fits and starts with large missing chunks of time, akin to pictures missing from a photo album. The ending does reveal the reason why the story is told as it is and changes quite a lot but the payoff may not be big enough. Although there are some flaws here, the novel shows the lack of choices for women of their age and time and will make readers reflect on just what does make a lasting friendship and the nature of friendship in their own lives. show less

I really like Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss. The two main characters, Alex and Rebecca grew up in the 1960s and in Pasadena, California. They had a friendship that suffered a betrayal. Would they get over it?

Alex has a big mouth but otherwise very pretty and very social. Rebecca was bookish, shy and very serious. I really enjoyed Rebecca's character because I identified with her so much. I was the same way in grade school through high school. I relished the call of books much more show more than the parties.

OK, not only is Rebecca like me she had some of the same experiences. Alex claims her as a blood sister with a short ceremony just like I experienced in the past. Rebecca is the one who dived in dissecting the frog. I did too in my zoology class. My partner, a football player started to pass out at the idea of cutting the dead frog open. I also loved the library intensely and once read every book there on several of my favorite subjects so I had to change libraries to get new books. No more about me!
The two friends had experiences that were so common in the sixties. They went their own ways and were nothing like each other so there is a bit of mystery about what pulled them together.

But one of them betrayed the other and they lied to each other. Would it ever be the same as the beginning with them?

I highly recommend this book and want to read more by Aria Beth Sloss. I also wonder when she grew up, was she more like Rebecca? show less

Alex and Becky were girlhood friends, growing up in Pasadena in the early 60's. Alex had dreams of becoming a famous actress while Becky found her passion in studying the sciences, intent on becoming a doctor. Both girls find their dreams crushed by the challenges of the times and they attempt to make due in trying to find happiness through their marriages and children. Though not in communication for various periods of their lives, the girls reconnect and find that their friendship is show more probably the strongest relationship they have. This is a partial historical novel with events of the 60's and 70's thrown in for perspective.

I wanted to like this novel more than I did, and I have spent the last few days reflecting about what was missing. There were some things I really liked. The setting and the time period was very interesting to me. I pictured my mother's generation and the challenges they had in pursuing their academic dreams when women were discouraged from higher education. I liked picturing the settings and the values of the time. I also generally enjoyed the language and the dialogue, which seemed antiquated, yet somehow familiar. I think what was missing were the emotions and connection between the girls. When they spoke to eachother, there wasn't warmth, it always felt hostile or like sparring. I just couldn't understand how they were supposed to be so connected when they tended to bicker or engage in intellectualism all the time. I never felt anything in their relationship and most of the other characters felt cold also. As a historical novel it wasn't bad, but as a novel for women, it fell short, at least for me. I enjoy women's fiction which makes you feel like you are involved in the character's lives, but I simply felt nothing for these two women. It was lacking humor and emotion... both aspects that help characters and stories come to life. show less