I had started the book as I was waiting to move up to the top of the library waiting list for The Testaments. Doris Kearns Goodwin is known for her works of history, especially Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.
Wait Until Next Year is her memoir of growing up in Brooklyn with a focus on her love of the Brooklyn Dodgers. That love affair started when Doris was six and lasted until the cursed Walter O'Malley moved the team until Los Angeles.
Baseball permeated all parts of Doris's life. In her first confession she was worried because she had gone to see Ray Campanella at the Episcopal Church. Was that a sin? She also confessed that she had wished a broken arm to a Yankee pitcher as well as other injuries to Dodgers' opponents. She had a camaraderie with people in the butcher shop even though they supported the Giants.
The memoir also includes things beyond the neighborhood: the fear of polio, the atomic bomb drills in school, the McCarthy hearings, and the integration of the Little Rock high schools.
Wait Until Next Year is one of the best memoirs I've read. It captures an important time in a life memorably and poignantly.
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