Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things

January 30, 2017
Syndicated advice columnist Dickinson (The Mighty Queens of Freeville) shares reminiscences in this authentic and heartfelt story of life in the small village (pop. 520) of Freeville on the outskirts of Ithaca, N.Y. One of four kids, Dickinson was raised on a dairy farm, but when she was 12, her colorful, reckless father lost the property and divorced her mother (who later inherited another home in Freeville). Dickinson writes of her first failed marriage, her life as a single mom (she lived in Washington D.C. but summered with her daughter in Freeville), her early job at NPR, and her eventual shift to the Chicago Tribune’s Ask Amy column. The bulk of the memoir deals with family topics, her midlife search for her own “Mr. Darcy” (who turns out to be a “hunky contractor” named Bruno), coping with the deterioration of her aging mother, and dealing with her profound attachment to people, places, and houses. Each chapter serves as a vignette, and strung together they tell the tale of a “reliable,” practical (she owns just four pair of shoes), immensely loving daughter, wife, and mother, who despite her career success remains down to earth and focused on family. Chapters on surviving her mother’s death and restoring ties with her elderly father are particularly moving. Ask Amy fans will eagerly soak up this intimate memoir, and new readers will feel as if they’ve found a compassionate new friend.

June 26, 2017
Dickinson, who writes the syndicated “Ask Amy” advice column, follows The Mighty Queens of Freeville with this similarly themed memoir of love lost and found. Returning as a divorced adult to the small town near Ithaca, N.Y., where she grew up, Dickinson did not expect to find love; her primary motivation for moving was to be near her aging mother. But most of this memoir is about falling in love with a prior acquaintance, carrying out a courtship under the prying eyes of a small town, and remarrying and becoming a stepmother. Reading the audiobook, Dickinson’s emotions comes through as she recounts the ups and downs of these years, especially the slow decline of her mother and her own debilitating grief following her mother’s death. She is more spirited while reading the lighter elements of her story, gleefully recounting a series of terrible dates between her two marriages and describing the various indignities of middle age. Dickinson’s delivery can be rushed and at times giggly, with many sentences rising in pitch at the end so that they resemble questions. Still, the intimacy of this memoir rests on Dickinson’s authenticity, so these small imperfections only add to the listening experience. A Hachette hardcover.

January 15, 2017
A popular newspaper columnist candidly shares more memories of her altruistic life, past and present.In this follow-up to The Mighty Queens of Freeville (2009), Dickinson, the ever wise voice (and Ann Landers successor) behind the widely syndicated "Ask Amy" advice column, is wryly sincere and poignant in her further stories about how she left tiny Freeville, New York, for more adventurous pastures, then returned to downshift through midlife to "resume the lifelong job of growing up." Her book is rooted in landscape and people, featuring the bucolic hamlet (pop. 520) of her childhood and the family members who live close to the cozy house she inherited from her mother. Dickinson shares deeply entrenched memories of life on the farm in her early years, with a gaggle of siblings and her restless parents, Buck and Jane. The author also examines the domino effect of a deflated marriage, infidelity, single motherhood, and a temporary return to Freeville to regroup before heading off to stints in Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Anchoring the memoir is a gloriously detailed chronicling of her romantic courtship with Bruno, a former high school classmate who would steal her heart back home. Their marriage, when Dickinson was 50, had several minor stumbling blocks but successfully blended together a family of five daughters. "I was a newlywed," she writes. "An over-the-hill, root-dying, hot-flash-suffering, slightly lumpy newlywed, but still--a bride." Throughout the book, anecdotes on small-town life, blind dating, and convoluted tree removal intertwine with heart-rending moments about her aging father and stubborn, increasingly frail mother, who forced the author to face the sobering reality of relocating her to a care facility after months of "strategizing, subterfuge, and frustrated coercion." Readers unfamiliar with Dickinson should begin with her first book, which gives a marvelous overview of a woman returning to her roots to restore her faith in family. In this extension of her debut memoir, Dickinson remains an engagingly chatty, witty, and relatable writer with sage insights.

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Starred review from January 1, 2017
Advice columnist Dickinson, of Ask Amy, moved to her hometown in upstate New York in the early 2000s, after having lived in major cities like New York and Washington, D.C. Not only is the town's population sparse, hovering somewhere near 500, but most of its residents seem related to her. Yet this return does not seem to stifle her; in fact, the homecoming opens an unexpected door to love. Who says there's no life in a small town? For in Freeville, New York, single parent Dickinson meets another single parent, someone she knew in school, and thus begins a sweet and tender courtship. Still, the subsequent marriage and the blending of children are not without bumps, and she deftly recounts such moments truthfully but without trespassing on family members' privacy. This is a memoir of relationships, as Dickinson tenuously connects with her ne'er-do-well father and helps care for her ailing mother, the loss of whom renders her bereft. Although she tries many remedies, it is really the passage of time and a line from the movie Tootsie which see her through. Dickinson's warm and generous spirit makes a reader feel as though they've been invited in for hot cocoa on a cold day.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)