Nowhere like This Place

I went into this book totally blind, choosing it based on the cover. I'm so glad I did! Carr's writing is sharp, interesting, and smart. I did not know that this was a memoir and initially was turning pages waiting for the plot to thicken. It doesn't thicken, but it simmers in such an enjoyable way that I felt I knew my way around this nuclear town that she's described so well. I found her so relatable, and I would challenge any reader to not see themselves and their own experiences within these pages.

I admit, the cover drew my attention, especially the subtitle Tales from a Nuclear Childhood. I enjoy memoirs, and not just those written by the famous, or media darlings, or politicians. Because ordinary people can have interesting lives, too.
In Nowhere Like This Place, Marilyn Carr reminisces on her childhood growing up in a planned Ontario neighborhood where everyone's dad worked at the nuclear reactor plant, known as 'the plant,' although Carr at first thought her dad spent the entire day riding the bus that he took to work.

With ironic humor, Carr recalls growing up as I did, in a world filled with unrecognized threats.

Asbestos floor tiles that needed constant waxing and asbestos clay projects in school. Baby car seats with a horn that did nothing to protect the baby. Kids at the beach without lifeguards. Biking all day in bear country, eating wild berries and drinking from the river. Lead paint and eating glue. And snow boots that neither protected from the cold or offered traction on the ice.

She recalls the awful 1960s cuisine of Tang and oleo-margerine, girls puzzling on how to wear snow pants with a skirt or garter belts with a mini-skirt, and the eternal problem of missing Barbie doll shoes.

It was a world of risk to be a kid back then.

First jobs, hobbies she dreamt would lead to a career, girlfriends and learning about boys--all the normal things girls go through--are recalled.

This was a joy to read, funny and warm, entertaining and nostalgic. There are not deep insights, no overcoming of neglect or abuse. Sometimes it is good to just sit back and enjoy someone's journey.

I was given a free galley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

“Our town was planned within an inch of its life. There was nothing for anyone to decide.”

Deep River, Ontario is a suburb without a city. Meticulously planned and impractically remote, Deep River was greenhouse for nuclear science in the 1960s which made it far from your average hometown. Marilyn Carr’s dry sense of humor and keen observation skills bring this quirky corner of the world to life in her memoir. Surrounded by four nuclear reactors and home to more PhDs per capita than anywhere on earth Nowhere Like This Place is aptly named and compulsively readable.

Carr’s style is one of ironic nostalgia; she tells of school buildings constructed almost entirely of asbestos tile, the trials of having to wear snow pants with your school skirt, of lead paint, the chemical taste of Tang and the overlooked danger of a childhood in proximity to a nuclear research facility. Carr’s writing is witty and astute yet manages to retain the softness of life observed through the eyes of a child.

This book is a fun nostalgic trip down memory lane. So many long forgotten memories were revised from my childhood. The author, Marilyn Carr, has written a memoir of her grammar school years through early college. Her wonderful sense of humor and writing skills are evident. She had an unusual community life due to her father’s occupation but her growing up years were very typical of what we all experienced in the 60’s and 70’s. Since I was a girl at that time, I was able to appreciate all her memories. I think the younger generations will also like this time review.

This is the kind of book that is hard for me to read in one sit, but is wonderful to pick up every once in a while to read on. On one hand there is a lot of information, and a lot happens, because a lot happens in one's childhood. On the other hand, it's lovely in it's being what we Dutch would call 'kneuterig'. From the Quisenaire rods to learning how to swim to the clay made out of asbestos (I was actively shuddering at the thought of how it was mixed), as I said, a lot happened without things becoming truly grim. Apart from the dangers people did or did not realise that is, but those were always at the background. Even while I'm younger, it made me nostalgic to my childhood too.