Stephanie Jane reviewed Girl from Lamaha Street by Sharon Maas
A lovely memoir
4 stars
The Girl From Lamaha Street is a lovely memoir which manages to capture a time and a place which no longer exists. 1950s British Guiana, if one's background ticked enough socially acceptable boxes, seems to have been a kind of paradise, especially for such a self-sufficient child as Sharon Maas could be. I was surprised at the striking similarities between aspects of her childhood and my own English one some two decades later. We read the same books, particularly all those pony stories - I too have fond memories of the My Friend Flicka series - our parents recited the same maxims, and our schools served pretty much exactly the same lunch menus!
Maas is painfully honest throughout this memoir about how much she yearned for her mother's presence, even while that maternal role was fulfilled by her grandmother and aunt. For a long time, the only child in an …
The Girl From Lamaha Street is a lovely memoir which manages to capture a time and a place which no longer exists. 1950s British Guiana, if one's background ticked enough socially acceptable boxes, seems to have been a kind of paradise, especially for such a self-sufficient child as Sharon Maas could be. I was surprised at the striking similarities between aspects of her childhood and my own English one some two decades later. We read the same books, particularly all those pony stories - I too have fond memories of the My Friend Flicka series - our parents recited the same maxims, and our schools served pretty much exactly the same lunch menus!
Maas is painfully honest throughout this memoir about how much she yearned for her mother's presence, even while that maternal role was fulfilled by her grandmother and aunt. For a long time, the only child in an adult household or significantly younger than her cousins, her need to entertain herself and her keen sense of observation led her into the storytelling that would result in a successful career as a journalist and then a novelist. I hadn't actually read any of her novels prior to picking up the memoir, however I am now keen to do so as I appreciated the strengths of her prose and narrative. I loved how deftly she captured scenes and emotions. Perhaps there was a little to much repetition of themes for my taste, but overall The Girl From Lamaha Street gave me fascinating insights into both 1950s British Guiana and its contrasts with 1960s northern England. For readers such as myself who enjoy personal memoirs, this one is a unique gem.