Ithaca Diaries: Coming of Age in the 1960s

How does an impressionable 17-year-old girl deal with Fat Phil the Wet Kisser and a revolution at the same time? Ithaca Diaries is a coming of age memoir set at Cornell University in the tumultuous 1960s. The story is told in first person from the point of view of a smart, sassy, funny, scared, sophisticated yet naive college student who can laugh at herself while she and the world around her are having a nervous breakdown. Based on the author’s diaries and letters, interviews and other primary and secondary accounts of the time, Ithaca Diaries describes collegiate life as protests, politics, and violence increasingly engulf the student, her campus, and her nation. Her irreverent observations serve as a prism for understanding what it was like to live through those tumultuous times.While often laugh-out-loud funny, they provide meaningful insight into the process of political and social change we continue to experience, today. Author James McConkey has called the book a remarkable achievement. According to historian Carol Kammen, Ithaca Diaries is earnest, honest and funny. Historically important in addition to being an engaging coming-of-age story.