KINFLICKS by Lisa Alther

Finished Su 5/14/23

One of my ancient trade paperbacks that I had never read. I loved the book and it reminded me a little of Erica Jong's 'FEAR OF FLYING'. Both novels deal with 'Second Wave Feminism'. 

From wikipedia.org:

"Second-wave feminists grew up where the politics intertwined within the culture, such as "Kennedy, the Vietnam War, civil rights, and women's rights". In contrast, the third wave sprang from a culture of "punk-rock, hip-hop, 'zines, products, consumerism and the Internet"."

Ginny is called back to her home because her mother, Mrs. Babcock is dying and the book alternates between their interactions and Ginny's life and how she got there.  

Joe Bob- Ginny's high school sweetheart when she was a 'flag waver'.

Clem- Ginny's next boyfriend who was the polar opposite of 'clean-cut Joe Bob'. Clem almost killed Ginny in a motorcycle accident, but it also 'saved' Clem and he became a 'snake handling preacher'.

Miss Head- an important figure in Ginny's life. This woman turned her on to the joys of philosophy.

Eddie- Ginny's lesbian girlfriend.

Ira- Ginny's 'straight' husband and Wendy is Ginny's daughter.

Hawk- A US army deserter that turned Ginny on to Tantric Yoga.

The Melungeons:

"“Kinfolks” traces the history of the little-known Melungeons, a Southern Appalachian ethnic group with dark skin and, occasionally, extra thumbs. Alther first learned of the Melungeons from a baby sitter when she was a kid, and the six-fingered humans became bogeymen in her imagination. As an adult, she discovers a potential Melungeon link in her own family, and heads off on a stop-and-start investigation not only into her own genetic background but into that of a much-maligned subculture, a trip that takes her everywhere from Turkey (a possible point of Melungeon origin) to contemporary Melungeon gatherings." 

From Kirkus:

"Kinflicks has already had lots of previews; it's expected to do very well and if you're looking for an audience, try Shylah Boyd's American Made even if Shylah, while she talked just as much, wasn't quite as tone deafening. To extend the points of reference: both girls come from the South; both have a liability/legacy in the form of a parent. Here it is Ginny Hull Babcock's spine-stiffening mother, who conferred on her all kinds of principles and inhibitions which impeded Ginny's own life as well as any feeling she might have had for her mother, now dying home in Hullsport, Tennessee, of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (can Joe Gannon pronounce that?). In between her vigils at the hospital, Ginny remembers all those kinflicks or home movies which were her mother's record of all the family firsts--the first tooth, the first smile. Ginny's own equivalents thereof include her time at Hullsport High as flag swinger and girl of football-playing Joe Bob who bulged all over, not necessarily at the right time. After more failed sex and sex redivivus, she went away to a small college, dropped out, had a good experience with Eddie (a girl) in New York and then at a Vermont commune, and finally went straight with Ira and had a baby until he threw her out for trying some further-out ritual coition with a real unreal freak. At the end her mother dies after all those dress rehearsals but she gives Ginny a nice send-off--shuck the past and ""Look after yourself, Ginny dear."" You're not quite sure how or where, nor is she. Author Alther can write--with lots of energy, humor she doesn't have to try for, and an awesome candor about the business of living and dying in between these waystops of experience. But she doesn't really make you care enough since her kinflick first novel documents more than it projects."