Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Nationally syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson, winner of the Ernie Pyle Award for human interest reporting, turns her sharp eye on herself in this frank, exhilarating, wise, poignant, and brave memoir. Her territory ranges from childhood memories of ritual pre-interstate trips in the family station wagon to visit foot-washing Baptist relatives to young-girl fixations on the Barbie dolls of the title, from the simultaneous exuberance and proto-feminist doubts of young marriage to the aches of loves lost through divorce and death. Her memorable journalism career, which began on her college newspaper and rural weeklies and moved on to prestigious big-city dailies, was punctuated by her distinctive writing voice and an unerring knack for revealing her much-loved South through uncommon stories about its common people. This is a big-hearted book that will leave no reader unaffected. In Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, armed with a sizzling wit and a generosity of spirit, examines the adventures, joys, and mistakes of a lifetime Whether reflecting on wrongful love, teen salvation, her career as a journalist, or cut-rate Barbie dolls, she whittles on down below the surface, revealing the lessons of a good life honestly and fearlessly lived. Melissa Delbridge, author of Family Bible
Rheta Grimsley, like Hemingway at his best, tells you no more and no less than you need or want to know. She is dedicated to truth, and her rare talent is that she consistently speaks to your mind and your heart at the same time. Greg Guirard, author of Atchafalaya Autumn
If you are burned out on memoirs, read Enchanted Evening Barbie anyway.In fact, don't miss it. It is superb. It is honest, intelligent, sad, funny, and above all, it is beautifully written. Sentence by sentence you won't find a better-written memoir in the recent past. I couldn't put this book down. Lewis Nordan, author of Wolf Whistle
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