Miss Aluminum - Susanna Moore

I borrowed Susanna Moore's My First Sweetheart from the library in 1982, a period when I had a baby and, being housebound, was reading voraciously. I'd never heard of her but found her writing evocative and since then have read several of her novels. Miss Aluminum is a memoir. The oldest of five children, Moore spent her formative years in Hawaii; her father was a radiologist and her mother was the daughter of a maid. Their marriage was not a happy one and her mother died under murky circumstances in her early thirties, leaving Susanna and her siblings to fend for themselves. Her father was indifferent to them and he soon remarried a woman who was worse than uncaring. Susanna left Hawaii to escape the emotional abuse suffered in her stepmother's care and moved to Philadelphia where she lived with her maternal grandmother and aunt for a time until an older well-connected mentor found her a job at an upscale New York City department store and provided her with a suitable designer wardrobe. Her good looks led her into modelling (including a trade show stint as Miss Aluminum bearing a tinfoil trident) and bit parts in movies. She marries, divorces, lands in California and moves through life with no plan, making the acquaintance of powerful Hollywood men who provide her with places to live and occasional work. There are many, many names dropped. Moore is an observer, she does not cause offence and takes copious notes. Things happen to her. She passively accepts whatever life throws at her, designer clothes, sexist job interviews, apartments, even rape. It has all the gossipy bits to keep us interested and I came out of this memoir feeling like I'd read a decade of Vanity Fair magazines. But Moore is a good writer. Her descriptions of her childhood are poignant and her emotional detachment in adulthood clearly arises out of early pain. There is a dreamlike quality to Miss Aluminum that I found very appealing.
When the book ends she has left an unsatisfying marriage and resolves to find a place to live and a real job. Perhaps she will finally become an independent adult? If there is another memoir I'll want to read it.

My reviews of Moore's One Last Look, The Big Girls