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canadiantiquarian's review
4.0
On the surface, Anything Could Happen! is a snapshot in time of spending a summer at a cottage in the late 1920s. However, what is striking about Phyllis Brett Young's memoir is how it is told in a mixture of precise storytelling and tangential recollection. In doing so -- in including those bits that sprung to mind as she wrote these stories, and including the paths and asides that led to specific events -- she created a mindset, a taste of the person within the experience.
And being from a woman growing up in a time of great change for women, Anything Could Happen subtly explores the last moments of childhood freedom before expectations and pretences of womanhood would be thrust upon her. A time when existence had no barriers, and was full of activity, races, rifle shooting, and more.
"...the fact remains that, from the time when I could first walk until I adopted high heels, lipstick, and a pretence of helplessness, a muscle in the forearm was worth far more to me than any amount of brains in the head."
And being from a woman growing up in a time of great change for women, Anything Could Happen subtly explores the last moments of childhood freedom before expectations and pretences of womanhood would be thrust upon her. A time when existence had no barriers, and was full of activity, races, rifle shooting, and more.
"...the fact remains that, from the time when I could first walk until I adopted high heels, lipstick, and a pretence of helplessness, a muscle in the forearm was worth far more to me than any amount of brains in the head."
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