Gayle Young in REDBIRDS, ROSES, AND GHOSTS has created a fictionalized memoir that focuses on problems newly retired women face in trying to find a place for themselves. Insecurities, society’s expectations, and changing lifestyles echo, one off the other, until the narrator is able to face who she is without regret. Eating too much and writing too little work together to place her on stable ground.
Young’s re-telling of childhood events, her authentic voice and use of light-hearted humor keep what might otherwise become an overwhelmingly sad tale palatable. The conversational tone keeps the reader awaiting the next catastrophe. At times, the reader, like the narrator, has difficulty deciding if the speaker is real or imagined. Young’s ability to move from reality to fiction shows her to be a sure-footed storyteller. She has the power to grip our attention and let us know that the narrator’s experiences are becoming more universal in the lives of today’s women. — Laura Hunter, author of Beloved Mother
REDBIRDS, ROSES, AND GHOSTS celebrate the writer in all of us. With grace, humor, and compassion, Gayle Young captures a lost time for women and their “set-aside” dreams. Part memoir, part dream, the book travels to the past and what might have been, never losing sight of the power of a mother-daughter bond.
—Carolyn Haines, USA Today bestselling author
This is a charmer of a book, a memoir interspersed with short stories and poems, all inspired by Gayle Young's efforts in her first year of retirement to begin her life as a writer, come to terms with her past, and find humor in her daily life and family. She talks to ghosts, writes a novel, hears tempting desserts calling her name, and takes us along with her as she comes to realize that living in the past and worrying about the present are actually much less fun than appreciating and enjoying the life she has and the future she is beginning to imagine. — Jennifer Horne, Poet Laureate of Alabama
Gayle Young has written an extraordinary book, a combination of memoir and fiction. Her story is a charming collection of poignant family and childhood recollections, amusing revelations from her later life, and glimpses into the worlds of those who are gone. The humor and pathos blend to create a work of laughter and sorrow that takes the reader on a journey fraught with entertaining anecdotes and problems of the heart.
—Randy Cross, English Professor Calhoun Community College
