My Turquoise Years: A Memoir
Throughout her childhood, Marion Farrant heard exotic stories of the sophisticated life her mother, Nancy, led aboard cruise ships and in Australia. Nancy’s world of furs, jewels, cigarette holders, and handsome men seemed miles away from the west-coast hamlet of Cordova Bay, where Marion lived with her aunt and uncle, running wild on the beach with her friends and enjoying weekend visits with her devoted father. But things changed the year she entered her teens. First, a package from Nancy arrived in the mail—a gift of sexy lingerie. Next, Nancy threw everyone into a tizzy with the surprise announcement that she was coming for a visit.

In this memoir of her fourteenth summer, Marion Farrant captures a lost time and place with hilarity and affection. The setting is Vancouver Island, the year 1960. It is the heyday of the nuclear family; the time of the Three Stooges, the Red Menace, and Whipper Billy Watson; the apex of plastic, arborite, and everything turquoise: high heels, pedal pushers, refrigerators, cars, and even, at Easter, the fur of live rabbits. Witty, tender, and wry, My Turquoise Years is a book for anyone who remembers being a teenager.
"1100745025"
My Turquoise Years: A Memoir
Throughout her childhood, Marion Farrant heard exotic stories of the sophisticated life her mother, Nancy, led aboard cruise ships and in Australia. Nancy’s world of furs, jewels, cigarette holders, and handsome men seemed miles away from the west-coast hamlet of Cordova Bay, where Marion lived with her aunt and uncle, running wild on the beach with her friends and enjoying weekend visits with her devoted father. But things changed the year she entered her teens. First, a package from Nancy arrived in the mail—a gift of sexy lingerie. Next, Nancy threw everyone into a tizzy with the surprise announcement that she was coming for a visit.

In this memoir of her fourteenth summer, Marion Farrant captures a lost time and place with hilarity and affection. The setting is Vancouver Island, the year 1960. It is the heyday of the nuclear family; the time of the Three Stooges, the Red Menace, and Whipper Billy Watson; the apex of plastic, arborite, and everything turquoise: high heels, pedal pushers, refrigerators, cars, and even, at Easter, the fur of live rabbits. Witty, tender, and wry, My Turquoise Years is a book for anyone who remembers being a teenager.
10.99 In Stock
My Turquoise Years: A Memoir

My Turquoise Years: A Memoir

by M.A.C. Farrant
My Turquoise Years: A Memoir

My Turquoise Years: A Memoir

by M.A.C. Farrant

eBook

$10.99  $11.99 Save 8% Current price is $10.99, Original price is $11.99. You Save 8%.

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

Throughout her childhood, Marion Farrant heard exotic stories of the sophisticated life her mother, Nancy, led aboard cruise ships and in Australia. Nancy’s world of furs, jewels, cigarette holders, and handsome men seemed miles away from the west-coast hamlet of Cordova Bay, where Marion lived with her aunt and uncle, running wild on the beach with her friends and enjoying weekend visits with her devoted father. But things changed the year she entered her teens. First, a package from Nancy arrived in the mail—a gift of sexy lingerie. Next, Nancy threw everyone into a tizzy with the surprise announcement that she was coming for a visit.

In this memoir of her fourteenth summer, Marion Farrant captures a lost time and place with hilarity and affection. The setting is Vancouver Island, the year 1960. It is the heyday of the nuclear family; the time of the Three Stooges, the Red Menace, and Whipper Billy Watson; the apex of plastic, arborite, and everything turquoise: high heels, pedal pushers, refrigerators, cars, and even, at Easter, the fur of live rabbits. Witty, tender, and wry, My Turquoise Years is a book for anyone who remembers being a teenager.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781926812199
Publisher: Greystone Books
Publication date: 04/01/2004
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 160
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

M.A.C. Farrant was born in Sydney, Australia, and raised in Cordova Bay on Vancouver Island. She attended Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria. She is a former social worker and tap dancer and the author of seven critically acclaimed books: Girls around the House (Polestar, 1999), What’s True, Darling (Polestar, 1997), Word of Mouth (Thistledown, 1996), Altered Statements (Arsenal Pulp Press, 1995), Raw Material (Arsenal Pulp Press, 1993) and Sick Pigeon (Thistledown, 1991). She was the winner of the Van City Book Prize for her short story collection Raw Material, and her work has also been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

Read an Excerpt

‘My mother,’ I liked to joke to my friends, ‘is missing and in action.’ By the time I was thirteen, she was on her fourth or fifth marriage. ‘Maybe even her seventh or eighth,’ I’d been known to boast. In truth, we never knew for sure how many marriages Nancy had made. It was certainly more than the sturdy homemakers of Vancouver Island ever had. Like Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds or my Aunt Elsie’s favourite, Lana Turner, I imagined my mother hopscotching from one man’s broken heart to another.
"One of those broken hearts belonged to my father, Billy. When I was younger I thought he kept it at the back of his dresser drawer and only took it out on Friday afternoons, gluing it back together before his weekend trips to the island to see me."

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews