"A striking, sensitive record of voyages and acceptance.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Terry Cameron Baldwin has written the definitive memoir on coming of age in 1960s Southern California. It’s all here: growing up in an Eden on the beach, beautiful, rich parents, divorce, suicide, drugs, alcoholism, the Haight, private jets, cigarette boats, Volkswagen buses, furious arguments, and the constant lure of the road and the next big thing. ‘The free, fresh wind in her hair, life without care . . .’ drew Baldwin around the world. From the mountains of Mexico to the souks of Morocco, from laissez-faire Christianity to a Muslim ex-husband, she rings the changes of an impulsive, insatiable curiosity. This woman writes prose poetry.”
—Stephen M. Joseph, author of Children in Fear and Meditations, and co-author of the Tony-nominated Broadway musical, The Me Nobody Knows
“This is a wonderful read from a gifted writer. Baldwin paints vivid portraits of her characters and the world around them with a masterful use of language and syntax. It’s a captivating look not only at the colorful personalities that populate the author’s world but also the values, views, and quirks that distinguish them. In short, a fascinating glimpse at an extraordinary life of compelling relationships.”
—Richard Daniel, book editor for the Beverly Hills Post
“‘If you remember the sixties, you weren’t there,’ goes the joke. Terry Cameron Baldwin proves this canard radiantly wrong. We haven’t heard nearly enough from women about that era, a time when Baldwin says she was the freest she’s ever been. With a photographic memory, she introduces a cast of characters that glint in the imagination long after you close the book. And she evokes all the idealism, adventurousness, and self-denial of a generation too easily mocked and misunderstood. Muriel Rukeyser asked us what would happen if one woman told the truth about her life—the world would split open, she answered. Baldwin remembers how people in her world dressed and dreamed. She brings her ghosts back to life with exquisite prose as diamond sharp as the ring she donned in 1965.”
—Lauren Coodley, author of Upton Sinclair California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual, California: a Multicultural Documentary History, and Napa: the Transformation of an American Town
“All the Ghosts Dance Free tells the fascinating story of a woman striding confidently through a swiftly fluctuating world and how she and the world shape each other.”
—San Francisco Book Review
2015-12-15
A California native recalls coming-of-age in the 1960s, the deaths of her parents and her Muslim ex-husband, and many travels in this debut memoir. Baldwin was born into privilege, the daughter of a handsome, well-known architect with a showpiece home in a Southern California beach community. She details how this idyllic existence soon disintegrated, however, in part due to her father's drinking and infidelity. She and her sister then lived with their mother in Palm Springs but also regularly visited their bon vivant father, remarried to another heavy drinker with her own children. Baldwin's stepsister committed suicide, a shocking event that contributed to Baldwin's entering an early marriage with the son of a wealthy family. The young couple hit the road in a Volkswagen Bus, delving into psychedelic drugs and other 1960s happenings in Haight-Ashbury, Guadalajara, and elsewhere. The marriage eventually dissolved, leaving Baldwin to raise her son alone. At this halfway point of the memoir, Baldwin skips ahead 40 years and writes about the deaths of her parents and her ex, rewinding to previous events in between, including when Baldwin moved to Mexico. She stayed in touch with her ex while continuing to live an itinerant existence, including in Morocco, and ultimately converted to Islam. Baldwin remembers her stepsister again near the end of her memoir, as well as others she lost, noting, "And in the imaginary landscape of memory and projection, all the ghosts dance free." Baldwin's beautifully observed memoir captures the early 1960s spirit: "we were the nation's children, swallowing power chemicals to discover ancient roots. We crawled from the sea as single-celled organisms and witnessed the birth of complexity." She also provides touching tableaux of dealing with death and accepting the flaws of loved ones. This impressionistic memoir skims over some potentially interesting subjects, with little detail provided about Baldwin's second marriage or her financial situation, which apparently allowed for continued travels around the world. Overall, however, it's an evocative, memorable memoir. A striking, sensitive record of voyages and acceptance.
