First published over twenty-five years ago and recently reissued by The Feminist Press of the City Univesity of New York, Edith Konecky's "Allegra Maud Goldman" soars with life, tingles with humanity and snaps with feminist tang. Its theme of self-discovery, a staple of coming-of-age novels, however has a distinct slant; "Allegra" insists that its protagonist, a precocious girl growing up in late Depression Brooklyn, hurl herself against familial and societal restraints imposed on her due to the simple reason of her sex. Konecky has created a masterwork; her novel is neither strident or didactic. Instead, her protagonist, Allegra Maud Goldman tells her own story -- directly, ironically and courageously. It is this unadorned, unaffected point of view and voice which enriches the novel and elevates it to mythical proportions.

Cursed with a memory which forbids her forgetting any sexist reduction of her self, Allegra's childhood unfolds as an unending conspiracy to eviscerate her unbridled enthusiasm for life and undermine her incredible intellectual talents. Unsaddled from the urban poverty afflicting most Americans during the 1930s, Allegra lacks little material comfort but suffers, at an early age, from existential oblivion. Her distant and chronically-absent mother, a social butterfly who has made peace with her marriage to a quietly tyrannical dress manufacturer, provides little to copy as a role model. Allegra must set out to develop, define and fortify her own sense of self in a world seemingly set to reduce her to docile femininity.

In a revealing conversation with her mother, Allegra expresses discontent that her family focuses attention on her older brother David, who suffers from his own lack of confidence. When she asks, "How come nobody around here is at all interested in whether I am finding myself?", her mother dismisses her by telling her that she will "grow up and marry some nice man and have children." Against this biology is destiny environment, Allegra launches her battle. As her childhood evolves, Allegra challenges the different ways boys and girls are indoctrinated to handle their emotions, does battle with a public school system that diligently attempts to socialize girls into subordinate domestic. Her sardonic friend Melanie has one of the best lines of the novel: "If they're prepring us to be housewives...why don't they teach us something useful like sexual intercourse?"

By the time Allegra has come to grips with her evolving body, she has developed a passion for writing and a talent for poetry. Her epiphany is hard-earned and promises a life of rebellion. After having one of her poems purchased for publication in a daily newspaper, her father chooses to take her letter of acceptance instead of her creation to work as a means of validation. Stunned and bewildered by how her family "managed, with nothing but good intentions, to make me feel so dismal," Allegra repeats her own mantra of self-validation, her own declaration of independence: "You're a person. You're a person."

We tend to forget how hard girls have had to work to obtain what boys perceive is their birthright: the need for self-definition, praise for ambition and affirmation for struggle. Strong women come from strong girls. Strong girls come from the crucible of their own experiences and the will to face the hurricane. Edith Konecky's "Allegra Maud Goldman" will be a treasured companion for girls and women who savor the creation of an independent, autonomus self and will be valued by the boys and men who cherish girls and women who are strong, vibrant and proud.

I loved this book with all my heart- it told the story of how Allegra travels from childhood to young adulthood, dealing with ideas we all must cope ith- death, sex, love, and friendship. And, as a plus, her name is Allegra, a rarely seen name in the modern world, considering most people think its a drug. This book is one I recomend to all, even the most cynical of people.

This is a wonderful coming-of-age novel. Allegra Maud Goldman sees past the limitations of her conventional family, her teachers and peers. Her father is only interested in his fashion business, her mother mostly too busy meeting friends. She notices, and usually points out, what they can't see, especially when they treat her differently from her brother because she's a girl. For the most part she remains bright and clever, and her frustration rarely turns inwards or outwards - she rises above everyone and everything with the help of a friend.

It's very funny, very easy to read and stands up to being re-read.

This book is amazing, I am 15 and I read it, my mother at 39 read it, my grandma read it and my younger sister at 13 read it. Everyone takes away some different, but something wonderful from this book. It is absolutely indescribable, you have to read it; right now, order it, read it, it will change your outlook on life.

This is a beautiful book on so many levels. The author's voice, the author's spirit, the author's technique of storytelling are awe inspiring. If you have been led to this page, take it as a sign and order this book, reading it is an experience and I can't wait to read it again. If you are looking for a gift to give someone else then this is it, but read it first yourself so that you can trully share it.

My husband gave this book to me and I am truly enjoying it! Katharine sees things from a rare perspective. Her life transformed her into someone that could see deep into even the most mundane subjects. I feel a new appreciation for even the sounds of crickets! She was certainly a person who's cup was always half full! This book is like welcome raindrops, enveloping you and staying with you long after the drops have evaporated!

Well written, engaging novel about a young woman's coming of age during the 50s, with original insights into the female experience during the Beat movement in the Village, etc. The perspectives are at times iconoclastic; overall, this is a provocative, even enlightening work.

Emma Goldman was one of the most important anarchist writers. This collection presents a good selection of her work, ranging through her entire life and covering a wide range of topics. This collection contains a lot of important material that is not present in other collections, such as the Dover volume. This is essential reading for anyone interested in anarchism or feminism.

Shulman raises many provocative ideas in her memoir. Among the ones that affected me most profoundly are Solitude, Rebirth, Self-Sufficiency, and the utilization of the resources in your own environment.

If you've ever feared that the possibilities for excitement, adventure, wonderment, or simply change- shrink with age, you will be inspired by Shulman's resolve to continue searching for meaning and discovery in her life at fifty and well beyond. What courage to embark on a new and thoroughly independent life after decades of playing the role of wife and mother. But Shulman is not a super human. She does not possess some rarefied quality that we could not all find nestled in our spirit. We walk with her down the beach of her island past a barking and threatening dog. She has always held an irrational fear of dogs though never has she actually had a bad experience with one. Her instinct is to turn back, but instead she contemplates the nature of fear and how best to conquer it, and she decides the best thing is to face it. So she continues on, if somewhat cautiously.

This book will mark you, if you let it. I come away feeling better equipped to face my barking island dogs. I am more observant and appreciative of my surroundings. And I will never see myself as stuck in a single way of life, never let the light of change and possibility elude me.

Drinking the Rain is a memiorthat moves slow like honey letting you savor every detail of this lovely book. It is about a woman who divides her time between loud, busy, NYC and the quiet coast of Maine. Her home in Maine has no running water to electricity or plumbing.It is a good book to buy your mom for the holiday season if she is of the baby-boomer generation. The woman in the story has a difficult time turning 50 but then learns to embrace herself and her age. Buy it for your mom or yourself if you are going throgh a mid-life crisis.

This memoir was extremely well written. The descriptions of life for a 50 year old city woman living in Maine are unique and beautiful. Each sentence and each page is capturing. Although slow starting gets much quicker as you go. I immediately thought of my mother while reading and afterwards. For me it did not have much meaning besides the writing aspect, though as a fifteen year old girl having lived in the country her whole life I do not expect that. I will definately reread it at a later point. A very wonderful book!

I just finished reading Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen [in a span of 24 hours, including 12 hours sleep], and struggling not to sound cliche, this book really changed my view on the world. Even though it was published in 1969, Sasha's experiences in a men-dominated society, especially as a teenager, are not too far from the world we live in today. We are still expected to get married and have children, and if we balk at the idea, though not said aloud, many still view us as abnormal, or lacking affection and maternal instincts - frigid. As I said in the title, this book, for me, was depressing in a personal context, and opened my eyes to the fact that inevitably, we will be the ones stuck with the children, the ones going unsatisfied, and the ones taken and [taken advantage of] for the pleasure of a man. So I don't like men too much, oh well. And even if you don't share the same views as I, don't hesitate to pick up this book because it will have an effect on you that no other book that I know of can deliver.

~another 16 year old reviewer named Alison

This is the most well written piece I have read since dabbling in the American cannon in my college literature classes. It is very frank, sexual and revealing. And the language is abosultely edible! Sasha is raw and on the edge of profound feminine insights, yet is battered again and again by the male-ism that dominates her culture. Women who have had few lovers may find this a difficult read, but that's the challenge. This book was not only a delight for the time period it represented, but I also appreciated the disturbing and yet real male/female scenarios that, although "dated," have given me a insight into raising raising my own young boys ... different from their grandfathers.

I recently finished "Memoirs" and I can not stop thinking about it. I had never read any thing like it and it has greatly impacted my life and the way I perceive things. I received "Memoirs" as a Christmas prestent in 1999, when I was fourteen. It was only this past Easter vacation however that I got a chance to really read and listen to what Sasha, the protagonist, had to tell me. Sasha was born during the War and lived in a mid-western middle class town. She was surrounded by all the femal sterotypes of the day, but because of her intelligence was able to pursue some of her dreams. Sasha's fears and desires are all the things that we think but don't talk about. Almost everyone has felt the degrading affects of disrespect, including Sasha. While some of her descriptions of situations are accompanied by swears I feel that you have to look past it and put yourself in the situation. This book gives you a clear picture of an almost date rape, the confusions of growing up, and the day to day struggles that women go/went through. I highly reccommend this book to mature teenages as well as adults. This book has made me realize just how lucky I am to be living in a time where women are now able to talk, instead of keeping their secrets bottled up.

~a 16 Year old reader

This is an amazing story of Emma Goldman's hard childhood. And her strength of rising above it and speaking out against the Russian Government

I bought this book because of a review I read in"Bust" magazine, but I must say this book isn't really worth reading. I thought I might get something useful and insightful out of it since I just turned 18 and will be moving out of the house soon. Boy was I wrong. The entire story is about a woman who reviews her childhood and her parents. The only interesting thing is how she progresses from seeing her parents as just that--parents, designed to keep her caged in, to seeing them as real people with real desires, people who don't always get along and see eye to eye. I'd have to say, don't buy this book unless you're desperate.

This relatively short (254 pages) memoir is outstanding in the way Shulman reviews her life and learns more about those of her parents as she cleans out the home they lived in for forty years (after moving both of them to an assisted-living facility) in the prosperous suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio. She finds old letters she has written to her parents and they have written to each other. She re-explores the rooms and furnishings of the house she grew up in, couldn't wait to leave after high school graduation, and finally returns to. So well does she describe her parents that by the end of the book, following both their deaths at the retirement home, I was weeping myself, and missing her sensuous, vivacious mother, and matter-of-fact, judicious, loving father. The weakness of the book is that her relationship with her brother (actually a cousin her parents adopted after his mother died following childbirth) is very poorly described. We are told they have not had a close relationship as adults, but, aside from one episode of friction the author relates, we do not know why. When her brother dies of lung cancer, she regrets their distant relationship, but does not seem to have done much to nurture a better one while he was living.

I really tried to hang in there for this book and read it through to completion, but it just didn't' happen. I read into the 200s and then just lost patience. I'm a fan of A.K. Shulman. I think memoirs of an ex prom queen is brilliant! So, I thought I would try this one out and it's nothing like her other books. It goes nowhere. I couldn't recognize a plot. This account of numerous infidelities seems weirdly skewed. Its almost as if it doesn't represent any culture that I know of. Bottom line: its hard to relate to, comprehend and thus, read. I do, however, recommend Shulman's other books.

Usually I don't finish books that I'm not enjoying or getting something out of. I just never got into these characters or had any sympathy for them. Could be because I am happily married and believe in the sanctity of marriage? This book was a dud...outdated and not particularly entertaining either.

I gave it two stars because I tend to grade high.