The Lives of Girls and Women
Reading Notes: The Lives of Girls and Women
Chapter One: The Flats Road
* Descriptive (3) “ We caught the frogs for him. WE chased them, stalked them, crept up on them, along the muddy riverbank under the willow trees in marshy hollows full of rattails and sword grass that left the most delicate, at first invisible, cuts on our bare legs.” * Uncle Benny: “He was not our uncle, or anybody’s.” (3) * He wore the same clothes “rubber boots, overalls, no shirt, a suit jacket, rusty black and buttoned, showing a V of tough red skin with a tender edge of white. A felt hat on his head had kept its narrow ribbon and two little feathers, which were entirely darkened with sweat.” (3) * “ He said there was a quick-sand hole that would take down a two-ton truck like a bite of breakfast” (4) * Benny subscribed to a strange paper with headlines about nonsense “ Father feeds twin daughters to hogs, woman gives birth to human monkey…” (7) * Narrator lives at the end of Flats Road, has a brother named Owen * Narrators family raises silver foxes * No one likes the mother, everyone likes the father * Narrator in the 4th grade * Uncle Benny mails a lady about possibly marrying her * Gets a letter back saying that Madeleine Howey would marry him and has an 18 month old daughter named Diane * “Her hands were in the pockets of the jacket, her head was bent, her long legs going like scissors.” (17) * 18 description of Madeleine * Madeleine was abusive to Benny and Diane * Madeleine ran away with Diane, and sent a letter saying she was in Toronto (22) * Benny went to go find her * Couldn’t find the place or didn’t want to? (24)
Chapter Two: Heirs of the Living Body
* Uncle Craig: one rye blind, face was square and sagging, his body stout. (29) * Aunt Grace and Aunt Elspeth played tricks on each other and others when they were little and still continue to do so (33-34) * “It was a hot and perfectly
Chapter One: The Flats Road
* Descriptive (3) “ We caught the frogs for him. WE chased them, stalked them, crept up on them, along the muddy riverbank under the willow trees in marshy hollows full of rattails and sword grass that left the most delicate, at first invisible, cuts on our bare legs.” * Uncle Benny: “He was not our uncle, or anybody’s.” (3) * He wore the same clothes “rubber boots, overalls, no shirt, a suit jacket, rusty black and buttoned, showing a V of tough red skin with a tender edge of white. A felt hat on his head had kept its narrow ribbon and two little feathers, which were entirely darkened with sweat.” (3) * “ He said there was a quick-sand hole that would take down a two-ton truck like a bite of breakfast” (4) * Benny subscribed to a strange paper with headlines about nonsense “ Father feeds twin daughters to hogs, woman gives birth to human monkey…” (7) * Narrator lives at the end of Flats Road, has a brother named Owen * Narrators family raises silver foxes * No one likes the mother, everyone likes the father * Narrator in the 4th grade * Uncle Benny mails a lady about possibly marrying her * Gets a letter back saying that Madeleine Howey would marry him and has an 18 month old daughter named Diane * “Her hands were in the pockets of the jacket, her head was bent, her long legs going like scissors.” (17) * 18 description of Madeleine * Madeleine was abusive to Benny and Diane * Madeleine ran away with Diane, and sent a letter saying she was in Toronto (22) * Benny went to go find her * Couldn’t find the place or didn’t want to? (24)
Chapter Two: Heirs of the Living Body
* Uncle Craig: one rye blind, face was square and sagging, his body stout. (29) * Aunt Grace and Aunt Elspeth played tricks on each other and others when they were little and still continue to do so (33-34) * “It was a hot and perfectly