Looking back with Gabriella Goliger
Gabriella Goliger is here today. She is the author of Song of Ascent and the recently released Girl Unwrapped. When I was researching Gabriella what I really liked was how honest and forthcoming she is. I honestly can’t wait to read her books!
Today, she’s here to share with us a little bit about her past in a garage sale of her teenage years. Let’s see what she would have parted with shall we?
Some of the items listed are things I never would have wanted to own in the first place, so they would be free, or I’d even pay you to take them away.
1) One very slightly used girdle (foundation garment, to use the fancy term). Stomach ache guaranteed.
2) A bag of brush rollers (the kind that impale your scalp).
3) A crinoline. Puffs out your prom dress so that you look like you’re sticking out of a bell.
4) Stack of 45 rpm records by various heartthrobs with the first name of Bobby (Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Rydell I outgrew them after age 12).
5) Facts of Love and Life for Teenagers (a book that meant well but was full of the biases of the times)
6) Strap-on roller skates with metal wheels. Made your teeth chatter when you skated on sidewalks, but that was part of the fun.
7) A sterling silver puzzle ring. They were all the rage in the late 60s. Perfect for people who like to fiddle with their hands. A pain, though, when you forget how to put it back together.
8) Pair of purple velvet “hot pants”. (A combination mini-skirt and shorts or bloomers.)
9) Powder blue corduroy overalls. Cripes, I can’t believe I wore such a thing. They were a fashion statement and certainly not meant to be worn while painting your deck or changing the oil in your car.
Girl Unwrapped is a girl’s coming-of-age story set in 1960s Montreal about the burdens and blessings of history, the divided self, and the quest to be whole. Toni Goldblatt’s awakening to taboo desire conflicts with her Holocaust-scarred parents’ expectations. Yearning to reinvent herself, she flees to Israel in the wake of the 1967 war, but the Zionist dream doesn’t save her; only on her return, when she discovers kindred spirits in the underground lesbian bar scene, does Toni begin to find her own path. Girl Unwrapped is a novel about love, isolation, and the search for personal truth despite the stranglehold of family.
