Johnson is best known as a cosmopolite writer “Le Divorce”, “Le Marriage” and so on—books set in Paris where she lives part-time, as well as a screenwriter and travel writer. In this memoir, she retraces her youth growing up in Moline, Illinois (flyover country) which will resonate with those of her era—the 40’s and 50’s. She also includes family history, which is not quite so fascinating, and updates us to her present life. Yet, the sections that focus on Moline (“it was like Brigadoon”, says a childhood friend) remind us of the way of life that many miss—the family stores, the families themselves with their many aunts and uncles and family stories, the mom and pop restaurants, the communities where everyone knew you (which had its up and downsides). Kind of a strange book. I decided to give this a try even after reading some of the less enthusiastic reviews on here because I thought I might identify with the author's supposed focus in this book. Like the author, I was born and raised in Illinois and have some familiarity with some of the towns she writes about here (though I've lived primarily in and around Chicago, and went to college in southern Illinois, I do have relatives in Davenport, Bettendorf, and Rock Island--all near Moline, which is the main town Johnson discusses in the book). Also like the author, I left the Midwest to live or spend large chunks of time in other parts of the country and world (Ireland, Boston, France, and Australia). I didn't really identify with her Illinois, or her Midwest, much. I found Johnson's experiences and point of view pretty WASPy--though hardly pretentious, as some other reviewers on here have decided. Just a bit...chilly? Maybe even myopic (ironically, considered how well-traveled and accomplished Johnson is)? I can't quite put my finger on the right word.... Quite often throughout the book, Johnson states that her point of view or experiences or inclinations are rather like most Midwestern people's, or like most women's, or like most...you get the drift. But as a Midwestern woman myself, a fair bit of these assumptions were news to me. Our similarities in geographical birth and upbringing and adult wanderlust aren't enough to bridge the gap between our differences in religious upbringing, family size, ethnic background, family education history, family economic history, and marital/parental status. At one point, Johnson references the only two Jewish guys she knew growing up in Moline and it brings her to her family's view on the Catholics "across the river in Davenport, Iowa," specifically, their view on Catholic women ("condemned to lives of thankless childbearing and female servitude"). Reading this, I thought 'That would be my people she's talking about, I guess,' and that was about the only time I kinda-sorta recognized myself in this book about Illinoisans, Midwesterners, and "flyover folk" in general. But the real problem for me came in the last section of the book, when Johnson suddenly begins inserting her memories of working with great Hollywood and London film directors. It's not that this part isn't interesting. It just has no place in a book supposedly dedicated to memories of and thoughts about flyover people. Perhaps if she had thought to weave in how her Midwestern upbringing influenced her sensibilities, and thus affected her choices and relationships or dogged her desire to reinvent herself once she left the Midwest for New York City, then California, then London and France, etc., the inclusion of these particular memories would have made more sense. Instead it just reads like you accidentally opened up another book altogether. Could she not have saved these other, distinctly non-flyover memories for another book, or an article or something? In the end I felt like this was a writer just spending all she's got in her mind, regardless of whether everything is being spent in all different currencies for all kinds of objects that don't really go together. Johnson is 80 years old now (one year younger than my supposedly servile, thanklessly childbearing, Illinois Catholic mother). Johnson has written over a dozen books in the course of her career--but maybe at this stage she's not confident she's got one more beyond this one left in her?
What do You think about Flyover Lives: A Memoir (2014)?
Elegant and smart writing. Love Diane Johnson. I'll read anything she writes.
—Argentina
I have read some wonderful memoirs in my time. This is not one of them.
—amit
