Kirkus
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Vignettes from a life of activism, writing, speaking, and service, mined for insights and advice. Steinem’s second memoir, followingMy Life on the Road (2015), is a mostly grateful, sometimes rueful accounting of the people and places that have shaped her 92 years on earth. A chapter titled “Bad Things I’m Glad Happened to Me” includes a moving section called “A Small Person Looking After a Bigger Person,” about her experience as the caretaker of her mentally ill mother after her parents divorced. For a while, the two lived in a condemned farmhouse in East Toledo, Ohio, where Gloria was bitten by a rat in her sleep. Despite these vicissitudes, she finds humor where she can, explaining that, according to her upbringing, you weren’t allowed to be unhappy unless a disaster had befallen you. But in her undergrad years at Smith College, “I discovered that a mood was a prerogative one could exercise from time to time and no one would think worse of you. I was delighted. I immediately began to have moods.” She traces the experiences that shaped her political consciousness, including a racially mixed dance club her father owned on a lake in southern Michigan, years spent in India on a fellowship after college, and obstacles she faced as a beginning journalist, public speaker, and organizer. A chapter on key influences includes interesting stories about James Baldwin, Wilma Mankiller, and Simone de Beauvoir, along with few characters she despises, including Andy Warhol and Hugh Hefner. She can get a little preachy with lines like “When we look at history this way, we live a more fulfilled present” and “It’s fun to take the stones of our lives and make stone soup that nourishes all of us.” But sometimes, the moral of the story does resound: “There is nothing more basic or radical than telling the truth and listening to other people do so.” This beloved principle led to decades of hosting “talking circles” from those who led to the founding ofMs. magazine in 1972 to a 2025 gathering to talk about artificial intelligence. Numerous photos and artifacts add charm and interest. Down to earth, heartfelt, and illuminated by a lifelong commitment to principles. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.