Lifeguarding

Starred review from June 12, 2006
In this powerful and surprising memoir, psychiatrist and first-time author McCall describes a Carson McCullers childhood, growing up in segregated 1960s Louisville in a house haunted by the ghosts of her grandparents, who all died suddenly and young. As is the case with most haunted houses, there are secrets. The McCalls were members of Kentucky society, but her father's alcoholism—less and less well-hidden—spins the family into financial turmoil and social ruin. McCall, her older sister, Anne, and younger brother, Curt, champion swimmers, never make the hoped-for Olympics. Anne must eschew her debutante ball and go to Duke on a scholarship. But it is McCall's secret—lesbianism—that threatens to derail the family altogether and makes her contemplate suicide more than once before she finds the strength to pull herself from the emotional undertow. In this immensely compelling and deeply moving memoir of love and redemption, McCall's tale evolves with lyric languor and builds to a stunning ending.