- Mass Market Paperback: 503 pages
- Publisher: New American Library; Reprint edition (30 May 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0452276772
- ISBN-13: 978-0452276772
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 14 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,082,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Orginally published in 1976 and re-released as a Virago Classic, Lisa Alther's Kinflicks remains remarkably fresh and provides the perfect read for a plane ride into another time zone. The hilarious odyssey of Ginny Babcock, a Southern peach gone rotten, was a manual of self-determination and irreverent pleasure for 70s feminists. Incredibly raunchy and explicit about anal sex, orgasm, vibrators, Tantric sex, blue balls and lesbian trysts, it is hard to believe it was written before Annie Sprinkle became a post-porn icon. The colourful, ribald prose begins with Ginny's childhood with a mother who's "an aficionado of calamity" and a father who anticipates an ugly death after an accident with a wedding ring, then cuts to Ginny returning to the hospital bedside of her dying mum. Each family first is captured by a Kodak M24 Instamatic-- hence Kinflicks, but not Ginny's deflowering which is "as meaningful as the breaking of a paper Saniband on a motel toilet." When Ginny drops out of college, takes to the land and to lesbianism in a steam of boiling soybeans, the inadequacy of her rural expertise is brilliantly told. Her subsequent marriage is interrupted by a Nam deserter-yogi. Each identity shift is marked by impressive wardrobe changes: cone bras, cardigans buttoned up the back, girdles, Ban the Bomb T-shirts, patchwork dresses and finally sadly, polyester jumpsuits. In a deft finale, mother and daughter reconcile without sentimentality and Ginny learns how to forego a life of fruitless self- denial and look death and singlehood in the eye. --Cherry Smyth
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Review
An ambitious, funny, lucid and unfailingly honest novel ... No other writer has yet synthesised (the coming of age in the 60's) as well as Ms Alther has (THE NEW YORKER )
A strong, salty, original talent ... It made me wonder what Tom Jones would be like written now (DORIS LESSING )
Dazzling talent ... brilliant, compelling ... wildly ribaldly funny (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY )
Orginally published in 1976 and re-released as a Virago Classic, Lisa Alther's Kinflicks remains remarkably fresh and provides the perfect read for a plane ride into another time zone. The hilarious odyssey of Ginny Babcock, a Southern peach gone rotten, (Cherry Smyth, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
A strong, salty, original talent ... It made me wonder what Tom Jones would be like written now (DORIS LESSING )
Dazzling talent ... brilliant, compelling ... wildly ribaldly funny (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY )
Orginally published in 1976 and re-released as a Virago Classic, Lisa Alther's Kinflicks remains remarkably fresh and provides the perfect read for a plane ride into another time zone. The hilarious odyssey of Ginny Babcock, a Southern peach gone rotten, (Cherry Smyth, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Nothing Lisa Alther wrote has, for me, ever reached the heights of this first novel. Alternating chapters of Ginny Babcock coming to terms with her mother's approaching death in the present and recalling her upbringing set up a counterpoint between reconcilation and renounciation. It is a serious account of mother-daughter relationships and a searingly funny book that had me laughing so much in a hospital bed I tore my stitches. I continue to buy charity shop copies to give to my friends for the pleasure that it brings them, and to gain insights and pleasure from reading again every other year.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a remarkable story of the life of one woman, ginny babcock. Throughout the book you are surprised by the knowledge of he author and the many experiences she is able to write about so realistically. You develop with ginny from her first fumblings to her marraige and raising her daughter all the while battling to avoid becoming her mother.
If there is one weakness in this book it is only that the chapters relating to her mothers illness do not match the pace and excitement of those covering ginnys outside life. These chapters are essential to the story however and this book is well reccomended!
If there is one weakness in this book it is only that the chapters relating to her mothers illness do not match the pace and excitement of those covering ginnys outside life. These chapters are essential to the story however and this book is well reccomended!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
11 reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
It's Worth the Wait
27 Mar 2001
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Alther's literary creation is 'feminist' in the most salutory sense of the word, but it doesn't contain the mandatory man-bashing that became so common a few years later. Instead, Alther invokes an avalance of wit and sharp observation that will provoke a healthy nostalgia in the over-40s, a realistic warts-and-all view of that decade in the under-40s, and a pretty darn good look at that pivotal time for young adult readers who pick up the book. (Perhaps you know an older teen who's 'into' the 1960s?) The plot takes our (at least partly autobiographical) heroine from little 'Hullsport' (read: Kingsport) Tennessee Up North to a good college, and gets her into the Sixties just at the point they get hot, hot, hot. Of the many virtues of this novel, two stand out to me: (1) Alther narrates the story in a moderate point-of-view, avoiding the twin perils of getting too immersed in the subject or too distant and 'snooty'; and (2) related to this, her lead character's voice (which reflects her personality) is good, clear and steady, no whining here. Not to mention the fact that the book is witty as all get-out.
As you probably know by now, this kind of witty and zestful Baby Boomer's coming-of-age story is a glut on the literary market but in my opinion "Kinflicks" is *far* above the norm in quality. You probably already have your own favorite coming-of-age-in-the-Sixties novels; try "Kinflicks" and add another to your list.
PS: Oh, Mr. Publisher!! Have you noticed that eight of us or so have gone to the trouble to review "Kinflicks," even though it's difficult to find through normal distribution channels? How about a reprint? I don't think you'd regret doing so.
charless@ync.net
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A '60's woman's search for identity
26 July 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Like many women of her generation (the 50s and 60s), Ginny Babcock is searching for her identity in an age when much is expected of women, but few opportunities and little direction is available. Being a wife and a mother is no longer the expected (and supposedly fulfilling) goal of all women of Ginny's generation, but what to choose instead . . .? Ginny tries a little bit of everything as she seeks for a role that thoroughly expresses her as a woman. Most of Ginny's experiments seem silly from the outside and end up as dissatisfactions and dead-ends, but often that's the only way we find our way through life. Counterposed with this is the lingering death of Ginny's mother and the struggle of the two women to bridge generational gap of two different generations and find some common ground. Ginny longs for some wisdom about life from her mother, but eventually sees that the only lesson available comes from simply living your life. I found this novel completely absorbing and sat up most of a night reading it. The relationship of Ginny and her mother touched a chord and has stayed with me.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
A poignant moving novel, achingly real and humorous
12 Dec 1999
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Ginny Babcock is the ultimate slacker, years before it became fashionable, or worse yet a media term to wrap a journalistic flag around. This book follows Ginny's misadventures, recorded with wry accuracy by the protagonist. A woman who is very intelligent but unable to make a niche for herself. What makes it so poignant to watch as she careens around from role to role is the hard fact that her mother dies slowly and is unable to provide Ginny with any profound relevations as the turbelence in her life grows to epic proportions. With the conclusion, one gets a strong sense that Ginny eventually straightens herself out.
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