Space
Novelist Jesse Lee Kercheval's sentences are so precise, her portrait of her troubled family so compelling, her description of children's complex social maneuvering so astute, that it takes a while to realize that her tender memoir of growing up in Cocoa, Florida, is also a masterful snapshot of America in the late 1960s. The family moved from Washington, D.C., to Florida in 1966 because Kercheval's father had accepted a position as business manager of the local junior college, his ticket to a decent civilian career after 30 years in the army. The author's mother, who loved her job at the Treasury Department, was less enthusiastic; during their years in Cocoa she drifted deeper and deeper into depression. Without writing a dogmatic word, Kercheval paints a painful picture of a woman agonizingly frustrated by being denied the employment opportunities her intelligence merited. Older sister Carol responded by becoming the responsible one, trying to make everything better; Jesse dreamed of going "far enough and fast enough to become a new and better person." So why is the book entitledSpace? Well, Cape Canaveral was only miles from Cocoa, but to appreciate the superbly woven web of fact, metaphor, and dreams that makes the space program so central here, you'll have to read Kercheval's beautiful book.--Wendy Smith