Of course, what she really longs for is that parental approval. But her mother, who lets her own love of her brother and her family history be shoved to the side for the approval of her domineering husband, doesn't approve of her weight. And her father doesn't approve of women lawyers.
This book is woke.
Louise Fitzhugh is mostly known for her classic HARRIET THE SPY which was published in 1974, NOBODY'S FAMILY IS GOING TO CHANGE was published just prior to her death, later that year, of an aneurysm at 46. Kathleen T. Horning wrote an interesting article on Fitzhugh for Horn Book. It gets a little HARRIET-specific, but most writing on her does. M. E. Kerr's autobiography is referenced therein, leaving me with no choice but to ILL that thing.
Horning refers to NFIGTC as "interesting" in her article, the classic example of damning with faint praise. Certainly from an adult perspective it is uneven, but I remember reading it as a kid and thinking, "Yes!" from the illustrations of what it was like to be the sibling of an adorable child to the descriptions of the black-out feeling of binge eating while thinking or reading, it spoke the truth to me.
There is some awkward dialog, the setting claims to be contemporary (although it really feels timelessly retro) and then you have the whole thing of a white woman writing from the perspective of a child of color. The ending is horrifying - Emma realizes that "nobody's family is going to change" and so she resigns herself to having to get all her strength from within.
Her parents do seem to love her and want what's best for her, but they don't allow her to weigh in on what that might be. They are such prisoners of their own attitudes that she really is deserted. She has her new group of friends - her consciousness raising group - and even though she doesn't seem to think much of them, they will offer her a sense of community.
Willie fares better, his mother finally stands up to his father about Willie's dancing when he is offered a role in a Broadway show. But the question of if he will be allowed to perform is left unresolved. It seems that Mrs. Sheridan is willing to go to bat for Willie because he wants something that is familiar to her. She comes from a family of performers and she "gets" Willie's longing enough to stand up to her husband. Emma is a different story. She says she doesn't want to marry, doesn't want to have children, and her mother takes that as a criticism of her own choices. It's a mess.
I loved this book as a kid. Maybe it was the fat-girl connection, maybe it was the family in turmoil, maybe it was because Emma was fatter and more friendless than I was, but it spoke to me.
This book was made into a Broadway play, THE TAP DANCE KID, when I was in high school on Long Island and I am 87% sure I saw it. (It is terrible to be old and forget things...) So I am on the fence with how I feel about it now. But I have to say that it did give us this clip from the NBC SPECIAL TREAT episode - "The Tap Dance Kid" from 1977. It was the STRANGER THINGS of my youth. (Just kidding, it pretty much sucked, but you should look anyway...) I definitely remember seeing this because I was incensed that because they wanted to use the star power of Danielle Spencer (If you're under 50 - she was Dee from WHAT'S HAPPENING - I'll wait while you google it.) and instead of hiring a fat child actress, they just put her in overalls. But she does a great job, particularly when you compare her performance to those of the other kids in the cast. Yeesh!
I always assumed this was a book about divorce--you know, the parents saying "your family isn't going to change just because we're getting divorced." The actual meaning: how horrifying and yet true! Now I want to read it...
ReplyDelete- Elizabeth from BT