I grew up reading Prudence Mackintosh’s Thundering Sneakers, a chronicle of a young mother raising three sons in the 1970s and 1980s. The stories are laugh-out-loud funny, and they merit re-reading (even if some of the references have become dated).
Recently I received copies of Sneaking Out and Just As We Were: A Narrow Slice of Texas Womanhood. The former is the last of Mackintosh’s books centered around her boys, the latter a compilation of her articles focusing on growing up and living in East Texas.
Sneaking Out provides a nice conclusion to Mackintosh’s original stories — it’s nice to read about her children as teenagers and young adults, and to learn more about her own life as well as her husband and marriage.
Far more ensnaring to me, though, was Just As We Were — it’s here that Mackintosh’s writing really shines. It’s lush and poignant, touching on all the places and things I as a Southern Texas girl know so well: summer camps, debutante balls, the Junior League.
It’s a book worth savoring, just like a “Girls Only” get-together or that last sweetened glass of sun tea.
