Life Lived in Reverse: A Memoir

This memoir details Lucille Griswold’s journey to become the woman she is today. The author begins by examining her Italian American heritage and upbringing in a small town in New Jersey in the 1940s and 1950s. Griswold reflects on her experiences and compares her family and childhood with those of other Italian Americans whose works she has read. She concludes that there is no Italian American (or ethnic) stereotype in society that holds true, since individual upbringing and experiences shape each person’s personality and ethnic identity. Griswold relates her experiences in education, explores gender relationships in the workplace, and reveals the challenges, including negotiating family roles and experiencing cultural differences, of being a military wife in the Vietnam era.