Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

Celeste Lawson does a fine reading of this classic memoir. First published in 1942, it tells the story of two innocents abroad in the 1920s. Nineteen-year-old Cornelia Otis Skinner and twenty-one-year-old Emily Kimbrough set out on the adventure of a lifetime, first on the high seas and then in England. From ships running aground, to hiding a case of the measles to avoid quarantine, to unwittingly taking lodgings in a brothel, the young women experience one madcap adventure after another. Without excessive ingenuousness, Lawson keeps her reading on an even keel, allowing clever dialogue, comical situations, and witty repartee to carry the story forward. Nostalgia for a time when the most expensive item on a chic restaurant's menu was $2.95 will keep listeners engaged. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine