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Joyce Maynard
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Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties Kindle Edition

by Joyce Maynard (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 64 ratings
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A memoir of what it was like to be a teenager in a tumultuous era, from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Best of Us.
 Joyce Maynard was eighteen years old when her 1972 New York Times Magazine cover story catapulted her to national prominence. Published one year later, Looking Back is her remarkable follow-up—part memoir, part cultural history, and part social critique. She wrote about diving under her desk for air-raid practice during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and catching the first glimpse (on the cover of Life magazine) of a human fetus in utero. Extraordinarily frank, sincere, and opinionated, Maynard seemed unafraid to take on any subject—including herself. But as she reveals in a poignant and candid new foreword, she carefully kept her inner life off the page. She didn’t write about her difficult relationship with her mother, or her father’s alcoholism, or the fact that her best friend at college had struggled with the knowledge that he was gay. And she did not mention the most important part of her life at the time she was writing this book: her relationship with reclusive author J. D. Salinger, who read and corrected every page, even as he condemned her for writing it. In this special anniversary edition, Maynard’s candid introductory reflections on the girl behind the girl who wrote Looking Back lend a new dimension to this iconic analysis of a generation. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Joyce Maynard including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.
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  1. Print length
    157 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media
  5. Publication date
    April 17, 2012
  6. File size
    3297 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Wonderfully penetrating . . . The lesson of her book is that . . . the task of the times may be to close one’s mind to the flow of easy symbols and prepackaged interpretations and to try to find one’s own fresh, direct relation to the world.” —The New York Times

About the Author

Joyce Maynard (b. 1953) is the bestselling author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction. She is best known for her memoir At Home in the World and her novel Labor Day, both bestsellers. Maynard launched her writing career as a teenager with the 1972 New York Times Magazine cover story “An 18-Year-Old Looks Back on Life.” She went on to contribute hundreds of essays and columns for publications such as Vogue; More; O, The Oprah Magazine; the New York Times; and many essay collections. The mother of three grown children, Maynard now lives in Northern California, where, in addition to continuing her career as a writer and speaker, she performs regularly as a storyteller with the Moth and Porchlight series. She also runs the Lake Atitlán Writing Workshop in a small Mayan village on the shores of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007S7JYGY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (April 17, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 17, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3297 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 157 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 64 ratings

About the author

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Joyce Maynard

Joyce Maynard

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A native of New Hampshire, Joyce Maynard began publishing her stories in magazines when she was thirteen years old. She first came to national attention with the publication of her New York Times cover story, “An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life”, in 1972, when she was a freshman at Yale.

Since then, she has been a reporter and columnist for The New York Times, a syndicated newspaper columnist whose “Domestic Affairs” column appeared in over fifty papers nationwide, a regular contributor to NPR and national magazines including Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, and many more, and a longtime performer with The Moth.

Maynard is the author of seventeen books, including the novel To Die For and the best-selling memoir, At Home in the World—translated into sixteen languages. Her novel, To Die For was adapted for the screen by Buck Henry for a film directed by Gus Van Sant , in which Joyce can be seen in the role of Nicole Kidman’s lawyer.. Her novel Labor Day was adapted and directed by Jason Reitman for a film starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, to whom Joyce offered instruction for making the pie that appeared in a crucial scene in the film.

The mother of three grown children, Maynard runs workshops in memoir at her home in Lafayette California. In 2002 she founded The Lake Atitlan Writing Workshop in San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala, where she hosts a weeklong workshop in personal storytelling every winter.

She is a fellow of The MacDowell Colony and Yaddo.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
64 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Laurel-Rain Snow
5.0 out of 5 stars A Baby Boomer's Coming-of-Age Tale...
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2009
Verified Purchase
In 1972, an eighteen-year-old girl from New Hampshire wrote an essay for the New York Times, entitled "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life". Within days of the article's publication, many letters came pouring in - requests for other articles, offers to go on television, and offers to meet with editors. One offer culminated in  Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties  - an expansion of the article she had written for the "Times".

In this memoir, the young woman, Joyce Maynard, wrote about her experiences growing up in a time when the world was changing dramatically - a world shaped by political activism, war, drugs, and women's liberation - and how such events, plus the constant media presence, dictated how a generation perceived the world.

Speaking as one person affected by these complex changes in our culture, Ms. Maynard describes coming of age in such a time as "growing old". Perhaps a kind of cynicism, or world-weariness from the constant barrage of images from television impacted her view of the world - and the
view shared by many of her peers.

Nevertheless, she also illustrates her growing-up years with the "normal" kinds of experiences - the same insecurities and fears - that shadow most young people. She also points out in her foreword that she does not consider herself to have been "representative" of the typical experience of youth in her time. In fact, she states that the act of writing about these experiences in a way "sets a person apart from the territory of which she speaks."

It is impossible for me to read this book, however, and not relate to it as someone having lived through similar experiences. Not the experience of living in New Hampshire or having written a book at a young age, but the commonality of fears and insecurities that hound most young people in any time, but especially in an age (such as the sixties) when change was
dramatic and constant.

I had read this book many years ago, but in rereading it recently, I still could relate to it. Ms. Maynard's fiction is compelling, as well, including the novel  To Die For ...But her memoirs (another is  At Home in the World: A Memoir ), are erudite studies of growing up female in the Baby Boom generation.

Laurel-Rain Snow
18 people found this helpful
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R. Crowley
4.0 out of 5 stars A Look Back That's Still Poignant
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2017
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Excellent account of what it is what like to be an intelligent adolescent coming of age during a watershed era.
3 people found this helpful
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M. Cusack
3.0 out of 5 stars Oh, nostalgia
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2013
Verified Purchase
Pretty humorless and, of course, self absorbed, but some very astute observations of the era by a very smart and observant teenager.
3 people found this helpful
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CindyC
5.0 out of 5 stars As fresh as if it had been written today
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2014
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I, like Joyce Maynard, grew up in the sixties. Her observations are "right on," and it was a wonderful trip down memory lane. This book led me to other books she has written. It's amazing that one so young could write with such a captivating book. All of this was made that much more intriguing by the fact that she was living with the (much older) J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye) at this point in her life.
6 people found this helpful
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Jili Power
5.0 out of 5 stars Would give it 11 stars if they were there!
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2019
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Joyce Maynard’s writing has impressed, fascinated, intrigued and enlightened me for years but this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity and taken time to read this great work by her eighteen year old self. I highly recommend it to all!
3 people found this helpful
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J. Richard Ludgin
2.0 out of 5 stars Stupid Book
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2014
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Having read this book, I'm confused as to what JD Salinger saw in the author. After about 100 pages, I decided not to waste any more time...was looking for at least a glimmer of shared experience (60s) but didn't find it.
8 people found this helpful
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Rhamlin
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting perspective
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2012
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Being a few years older (more a child of the fifties an early sixties) I was curious to see a review of events that I saw ad a young adult. It was easy reading and interesting. More middle of the road politically than Maynard, that was also novel to see someone who wholeheartedly threw herself into issues she believed in.
2 people found this helpful
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DZ
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2016
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Boring, partly because this was old information for me. I also lived those times.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Chris Prawdzik
3.0 out of 5 stars This book is about my family, so this is ...
Reviewed in Canada on January 19, 2018
Verified Purchase
This book is about my family, so this is why I purchased the book. I wish for it to be taken seriously and in order for it to have credibility it should be written with less grammatical mistakes. Time should have been taken to have it edited.
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