“Do you remember the best summer of your life?”
There are days I swear I’m living in the wrong generation. I feel like an old soul. I’m mesmerized by the fashions of the 1940′s and 50′s. The club music of those days makes me swoon. The tales of men going off to war and the women who waited for their soldiers’ letters of affection tug at my heart strings. This was a time when the most immediate form of communication consisted of a telegram or Morris code or heaven forbid, a long distance phone call. All were prohibitvely expensive. It was a time before facebook, twitter, email, and cell phones. Movie Stars were stars. And small town, wide eyed girls dreamed of the big city.
In her memoirs, Summer at Tiffany, Marjorie Hart captures the essence of the era as she tells of the best summer of her life. In 1945, she and her best friend Marty left the Kappa House at their Univesity to find summer positions as shopgirls in New York City. In a twist of fate, they find jobs as the first female pages of Tiffany & Co. It was a magical time of discovery for a small town girl who suddenly was amidst the social elite, Hollywood Stars, and handsome midshipmen.
The book is an engaging page turner. I picked it up at mid afternoon and by bedtime, I had closed the cover on a fairy tale come true. Mrs. Hart’s storytelling is conversational and peppered with her actual letters home. I felt as if I was sharing a cup of tea with a dear old friend. If, like me, you prefer your poolside reading to be less taxing on your brain and heart (no tearjerkers please!) , this is a perfect little read and it’s a perfect little gift for a friend.
Cheers and Happy Reading, Y’all!
