The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow

Product Details

The Barnes & Noble Review

What's so special about the 11 women who grew up together in Ames, Iowa, who are the subject of Jeffrey Zaslow's The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship? Well, nothing really -- and yet, in another sense, everything. With this book, Zaslow, who writes The Wall Street Journal's "Moving On" column, has set out to explore long-term female friendships -- what makes them tick, how they evolve, what they mean to women -- selecting this tightly bound group who grew up amid midwestern cornfields in the '60s and '70s and came of age in the '80s, specifically because they are so typical. "Born at the end of the baby boom, their memories are evocative of their times," Zaslow writes. "Born in the middle of the country, they now live everywhere else, but carry Ames with them. Their story is universal, even common, and on that level it can't help but resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend." To be sure, the particulars of these women's stories -- their personal tragedies, joys, and inside jokes -- are all their own. (Though a few years after they were teenagers driving around Iowa in their clunker cars, looking for a party, experimenting with alcohol and sex, and learning where they fit in, I was doing the same thing with my friends in my own Illinois town.) So while Karla, Kelly, Marilyn, Jane, Jenny, Karen, Cathy, Angela, Sally, Diana, and Sheila may be nothing like your friends from high school, or mine, their shared experiences and continuing bonds are something many of us can recognize. And to appreciate their friendships is to appreciate our own. --Amy Reiter

Synopsis

The instant New York Times bestseller, now in paperback: a moving tribute to female friendships, with the inspiring story of eleven girls and the ten women they became, from the coauthor of the million-copy bestseller The Last Lecture

As children, they formed a special bond, growing up in the small town of Ames, Iowa. As young women, they moved to eighth different states, yet they managed to maintain an extraordinary friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, the death of a child, and the mysterious death of the eleventh member of their group. Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the enduring, deep bonds of women as they experience life's challenges, and the power of friendship to overcome even the most daunting odds.

The girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend. The Girls from Ames demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women's lives-their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters-and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them. With both universal events and deeply personal moments, it's a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by.

Kirkus Reviews

An in-depth look at the enduring bond of friendship among a tightly knit group of middle-class Midwestern women born in the early 1960s. Through his popular "Moving On" column in the Wall Street Journal, which focuses on transitions in women's friendships, Zaslow (co-author: The Last Lecture, 2008) was introduced to the women featured here. The author briefly profiles all 11, but avoids an overcrowded portrait by focusing on four: strait-laced Marilyn, fun-loving Karla, outspoken Kelly and Sheila, whose death at 22 remains mysterious. The author spent time with them, looked at their photo albums, read their teenage notes and diaries, met their families and pored over the reply-all e-mails that have kept the group in close touch for the past decade. Zaslow also attended their annual reunion in 2007, an event he vividly recounts here. He records their happy reminiscences of high-school hijinks, their sometimes bittersweet recollections of adolescent misadventures, their connections with each other as their lives took separate paths and their continued warm support for each other as major events-marriages, births, divorces, deaths-impacted their lives. When breast cancer struck two of them in middle age, Zaslow shows the emotional help and encouragement they received from the others. Although his portrait of the group is mostly positive, he does not overlook the negative aspects of adolescent exclusivity, revealing how other classmates viewed them as a snobbish clique. Zaslow also reports briefly on research that has highlighted the difference between male bonding and female bonding, and the importance of friendship in the lives of women. A heartwarming account, ripe for discussion inwomen's book clubs and women's studies classes.

Biography

Journalist Jeffrey Zaslow wrote the story that focused international attention on Randy Pausch, a terminally ill Carnegie Mellon professor whose unforgettable "last lecture" became an Internet sensation. Zaslow and Pausch expanded the talk into a bestselling book, published in 2008, scant months before Pausch's death. Zaslow is also the author of several nonfiction narratives, including 2009's The Girls from Ames.