Too Close to the Falls: A Memoir
Catherine Gildiner, 2001
Penguin Group USA
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780142000403
Summary
Heartbreaking and wicked: a memoir of stunning beauty and remarkable grace. Improbable friendships and brushes with death. A schoolgirl affecting the course of aboriginal politics. Elvis and cocktails and Catholicism and the secrets buried deep beneath a place that may be another, undiscovered Love Canal—Lewiston, New York.
Too Close to the Falls is an exquisite, haunting return, through time and memory, to the heart of Catherine Gildiner’s childhood. And what a childhood it was! (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 29, 1948
• Where—Lewistown, New York, USA
• Raised—Niagara Falls, New York
• Education—B.A., Ohio State University; Oxford University (UK);
M.A., English, University of Toronto; M.A. and Ph.D., Psychology,
York University (Canada)
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Catherine Gildiner has been in private practice in clinical psychology 20 years. She writes a monthly advice column for Chatelaine, a popular Canadian magazine, and contributes regularly to countless other Canadian newspapers and magazines. She lives in Toronto with her husband and three sons. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Both funny and true, TCTTF depicts the formative years of an extraordinary child, but it also captures the essence of childhood itself. The combination is altogether compelling; I cannot recommend this book highly enough! A fascinating childhood is no guarantee of a fascinating memoir. It still takes a gifted writer to translate the past into a work of art, and Gildiner is a gifted writer. Her prose is intensely colorful, like a concentrate, but never overwhelming or laborious in its details. Against a vivid backdrop, she brings into focus those moments when the child's world and the adult world intersect, when illusions are shattered and understanding begins.
Toronto Star
[S]himmies and shakes with Gildiner's hilarious antics!Her writing sparkles on the page and the episodes she recounts have the clarity of ice after a winter storm in Lewiston. This is a memoir that makes the world seem fresh again, and worthwhile.
Literary Review of Canada
The writing is spot-on, Gildiner at her best and funniest describing the palpable happiness of her chaotic childhood!and escapades so incredible that I turned back several times to make sure this really was a memoir.
Laurie Graham - Daily Mail (UK)
Now a successful clinical psychologist with a monthly advice column in the popular Canadian magazine Chatelaine, Gildiner tells of her childhood in 1950s Lewiston, N.Y., a small town near Niagara Falls, in this hilarious and moving coming-of-age memoir. Deemed hyperactive by the town's pediatrician, at age four Gildiner was put to work at her father's pharmacy in an effort to harness her energy. Her stories of delivering prescriptions with her father's black deliveryman, Roy, are the most affecting parts of this book, with young Cathy serving as map reader for the illiterate but streetwise fellow, who acted as both protector and fellow adventurer. In a style reminiscent of the late Jean Shepherd, Gildiner tells her tales with a sharp humor that rarely misses a beat and underscores the dark side of what at first seems a Norman Rockwell existence. Mired in a land dispute, the local Native American population has a chief who requires sedatives to subdue his violent moods. Meanwhile, the feared "monster" who maintains the town dump is simply afflicted with "Elephant Man" syndrome. And Cathy's mother—with her intellectual preoccupations and aversion to housework and visiting neighbors—is an emblem of prefeminist frustration. The book's vaunted celebrity dish—Gildiner delivered sleeping pills to Marilyn Monroe on the set of Niagara--pales in comparison to such ordinary adult pathos. By book's end, Cathy, too, gets her share, as beloved Roy mysteriously exits and an entanglement with a confused young priest brings her literally and figuratively "too close to the falls."
Publishers Weekly
Clinical psychologist Gildiner's well-crafted memoir describes her 1950s childhood in Lewiston, "a small town in western New York, a few miles north of Niagara Falls." Hers was no ordinary childhood but that of a precocious, headstrong, and intelligent girl whose parents provided a uniquely unconventional upbringing. Because of her lively temperament, her pediatrician recommended to her older and devoutly Catholic parents that she work in her father's pharmacy to channel her energies. Thus, at the age of four, she was teamed with a black male employee to deliver prescription drugs when not in school. She had a wide range of experiences with her co-worker, stopping in bars and making deliveries to both the wealthiest and the poorest members of the community. In each eventful chapter, Gildiner focuses on a particular adult who strongly influenced her understanding of the world. Often dangerous, her experiences, as related here, are also amusing, charming, and relevant. Highly recommended. —Sue Samson, Univ. of Montana Lib., Missoula
Library Journal
A Canadian psychologist reconstructs her precocious girlhood near Niagara Falls. The author immediately establishes that the Niagara River is more than mere water. It is Life:"While it seems calm, rarely making waves, it has deadly whirlpools swirling on its surface which can suck anything into their vortices in seconds." Throughout this uneven memoir, the river and its celebrated cataract reappear to remind us that life is both capricious and dangerous.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss what makes a good memoir. How does Too Close to the Falls incorporate these qualities?
2. How did you feel about Catherine's childhood "career"? Did it place her in situations that were inappropriate for a child of her age? Elaborate. How do you think being exposed to these realities affected her?
3. If Roy were to describe young Catherine McClure, what do you think he would say? What about Mother Agnes? Father Rodwick?
4. Early on in the book, the reader understands that Catherine feels she is a misfit. How much of that can be attributed to her natural character? Should her parents have made more of an attempt to force Catherine to conform? More importantly, is it wrong for a child to feel "different" from everyone else? Can it build character?
5. Catherine struggles throughout Too Close to the Falls with double standards and issues of moral hypocrisy. In which scenarios did you find these themes especially pronounced?
6. Did Catherine experience a loss of innocence? If so, when? Do you remember a particular moment in your life that contributed to a "loss of innocence"? Is that moment an unavoidable part of growing older?
7. Is the spirit of rebellion evident in Catherine's character simply innate in certain individuals, or does growing up among particularly restrictive institutions (a strict Catholic school, a small conservative town, for instance) incite rebellion where there may otherwise have been none? Are there any people or institutions that you rebelled against as a teenager, but later embraced?
8. Consider the women Catherine comes into contact with: her mother, Miranda, Marie Sweeny, Marilyn Monroe, Warty, and Mother Agnes. What did she learn from each of them?
9. How did you react to the last scene in the book, the evening that Catherine spent with Father Rodwick? Was is surprising that Catherine—the adult looking back—seemed not to be judging the priest's actions? Do you think that the time they spent together was inappropriate? Might she have drawn something positive from that night?
10. "There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in."—Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory. If you could choose that significant moment in Too Close to the Falls, what would it be? What about in your own life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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