by Lisa Alther
First published 2010
Ginny Babcock grows up in a Tennessee town her father controls through his plant management. Her mother captures family moments on film, creating the home movies the children nickname "kinflicks." But the camera misses Ginny's rebellion against her proper Southern world. She explores teenage romance in car backseats, sneaks out to moonshine establishments with a greaser boyfriend, and later finds herself at a militant feminist commune in Vermont with a female lover. Each adventure pulls her further from her privileged upbringing. When her mother falls ill, Ginny must return home to care for her. The woman who once documented perfect family moments now needs the daughter who spent years rejecting everything those films represented. Ginny faces the gap between who she became and where she came from.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age, southern-gothic, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family
Setting: Tennessee, Vermont
Period: 20th-century
576 pages · ebook · Open Road Media
Content warnings: sexual-content