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A 16-year-old girl might be smart, funny, well-educated, and ambitious. And she might be able to talk about herself. She may have reached an adult height and shoe size. At this point in life She might read a book or hear a song that would leave a permanent mark on her. She might have sex or fall in love. She can be very serious. and strive to be taken seriously But a 16 year old girl is still a child.
First, here are four new stories from atlantic oceanBook section of:
on wednesday Vanity Fair published Augusta Britt’s Personal InformationThe woman the author calls the “secret muse” of novelist Cormac McCarthy died last year. According to Britt, McCarthy was 42 when they met in 1976; She was 16 years old, a refugee running from an abusive childhood, she said. Vanity FairVincenzo Barney at McCarthy sends her across the border to Mexico. Fake her birth certificate and began having sex with her, Britt was adamant that their relationship was consensual: “Everything felt right. It feels good…I love him. He is my safety.” But McCarthy also used her experiences in his novels. She accused, conjured up, and killed the characters based on her. “I was surprised when writing about it that it didn’t feel romantic at all,” she said. “I felt violated.”
Women have long been asked to grow up fast. Reading about Britt reminded me of an article my colleague Sophie Gilbert wrote this week. Regarding Cher’s self-titled memoir (the first half of a promised duology), the book follows her from birth through the 1980s, dealing mostly with her unstable childhood. It is rife with abuse, discrimination and frequent movement across the country. And her scrappy ways became even more famous. When she was 15, she was in Los Angeles meeting movie stars like Warren Beatty. She wrote at 16 that she met 27-year-old Sonny Bono when she become homeless So she moved in with him. Initially friends, “one day he kissed her and that was that,” Gilbert wrote. An entity called Sonny & Cher was born. He would be her husband and creative partner for the next decade. And they would divorce before she was 30 years old.
Cher’s book is a valuable document of a young girl’s transition into the adult world. Her current perspective, at age 78, allows for an honest assessment of a difficult situation. Cher’s grandmother, Linda, gave birth to her mother, Jackie Jean, when she was 13; Jackie Jean married Cher’s father Johnnie when she was 19 and immediately regretted it. Her daughter did not find anything romantic in their union. “My mother was a gullible person and stuck in a time when women had little or no social support. Therefore, when no other solution is seen So she went back to Johnny. Even though she claims she never loved or trusted him,” Cher wrote. (Johnny later ran off without saying a word.) Her mother’s boyfriend confessed his love for Cher. “It was a shockingly inappropriate statement on every level,” she wrote, “but especially so considering I was only 14.”
In hindsight, Cher’s writing about her life as a teenager is full of authentic teenage feelings. Her embarrassment and fear were evident on the page. Along with the peak of falling in love and first success. When they moved in together, she said, “Sonny and I became more like brother and sister. Or perhaps more accurately, father and daughter. Because I was an insecure child full of phobias. is a teenager who does not like silence and cannot ‘I can’t sleep if I don’t turn on the television’ When her mother found out she was living with Bono and demanded she come home, Cher was “sure I’d be locked up until I was fifty and never would be.” See Sonny again.”
These messages make the reader feel close to the teenage Cher. They also emphasize how young she is. Although she is talented and knowledgeable And how many obstacles did she face? “I am hard pressed to think of another famous writer who insists on abandoning rose-tinted reminiscences,” Gilbert writes. “Share wants you to know that for most people And for most women, the 20th century was not a cake walk.” Although she admits that she really loves Bono, But she detailed his cruelty. He mistreated her throughout the country (controlling her; Expressing jealousy) and professionally (He let hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes pile up He owns 95 percent of “Cher Enterprises,” while his lawyer takes the remaining 5 percent.)
What struck me the most was how much? time Separate Cher’s career from her teenage years. and a unique perspective on that time The events she recalled happened throughout her past life. Her book ended before she won the Oscar. moonBefore she released the song “If I could go back in time” before the success of believeAnd before her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, looking back, Cher understands that her 16-year-old self, when she first met Bono, still had so much life ahead of her: honor, relationships. Many obstacles and important events are yet to come. Just like a 16 year old girl.
Cher has a history lesson for all of us.
By Sophie Gilbert
The singer has long stood for brave survival. Her new story about her childhood explains how it happened.
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Things to read
break it downBy Lydia Davis
Davis is a master of a lot The short stories and works that made her famous break it downThey include the four-sentence piece “What She Knew,” in which an insecure woman tries to understand why a man flirts with her, and the six-sentence “The Fish,” in which a woman confronts There were “certain irrevocable mistakes” in her life, including the dinner she cooked for herself. These quick acrobatic short stories which made her a formidable figure in American literature. This is different from long stories that feature dry humor. of Davis and his acute emotional insight. In “The Letter,” a woman watches a long-awaited breakup conversation: “She immediately lost her appetite. But he ate very well and had dinner,” and the title is a sensitive ventriloquism about the cost of a failed relationship: “You are left with a great pain inside of you,” a man laments about love. The loss is reflected “You try to numb yourself by reading.” Davis’ stories plunge directly into the pain of everyday life. Makes the reader both comfortable and entertained. — Celine Nguyen
From our list: Things to read when you only have half an hour.
Out next week
Your weekend read
How did Jimmy O. Yang become a main character?
By Shirley Lee
“You don’t want to be in a box. But at the same time When you start It’s easy to think, ‘Hey, I’m an Asian actor.’ Call me if you need an Asian actor,’” he said, even after landing guest roles. Silicon ValleyHe used his earnings to buy a used car that he could drive for Uber to make a little more money.
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