IN SHORT: Author and composer Mary Rodgers shares her life story and experiences as the daughter of Richard Rodgers in this entertaining memoir/autobiography book.

REVIEW

I’ll admit that I had no idea up until maybe 10 years ago (or less) that Mary Rodgers, author of Freaky Friday, was the daughter of Richard Rodgers, the prolific and talented composer pretty much most known for being half of Rodgers and Hammerstein. I was given a copy of Freaky Friday when I was young, back in the ’70s, and I still have that softcover book in my collection of well-loved stories from my childhood. My own daughters know the story only from the Disney movie (that barely resembles the original) with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. I tried to get them to read my copy of the book, but I don’t think any of them did. Such a shame, because I read it multiple times and always laughed and had a great time with it.

Once I knew more about Mary’s parentage, and the fact that she composed music too, probably most famously co-creating the musical Once upon a Mattress, I figured she must have been quite the woman. So when Shy came out, I was eager to dive into her life.

This memoir kept me occupied for the better part of two weeks, a very long time for me to be reading a book. Part of the reason is that I was traveling and only read sporadically; part is that it’s a lengthy book, and there are a LOT of footnotes. The book is told almost exclusively in her own words, except for the concluding short chapter, where her co-author shares his take on knowing Mary and how they chose to create this memoir. The footnotes are sprinkled liberally throughout the text, sometimes several to a Kindle page. Sometimes they are Green’s notes, to shed a bit more light on what Mary mentions, whether it’s more information about a person, place or show/book/piece of music, or a clarification of facts from his research. Other times, it’s Mary’s own voice. So I was very glad to have purchased the Kindle version, so I could easily click and read each note as it was needed, but it did take more time to click, read, return, and repeat so many times.

At any rate, I thoroughly enjoyed being privy to Rodgers’ recollections and opinions in this entertaining autobiography. Being so familiar with the tone and wit of Freaky Friday, I could tell it was the same “voice.” Of course, there was so much more to her life than that book, as I learned. She grew up surrounded by talent, with colleagues and contemporaries of her father being like aunts and uncles. She grew up with Stephen Sondheim, whose talent floored and mesmerized her. They were very close friends for decades. She loved him and imagined herself in love with him early on, but his homosexuality was certainly a block to any romantic relationship (they actually talked about getting married).

Mary felt inferior compared to her father and Steve and many others in her life, including one of her sons, Adam Guettel, a composer much like his grandfather. So she was frequently trying to find her own way in music, which she did enjoy and was talented in. Her parents were never satisfied or happy with her; each was disapproving in their own way, certainly adding to her feelings of inferiority.

She had wealth and privilege but dealt with an unhappy upbringing in most ways, and as a bright and determined woman of that time, it was difficult to achieve and live in the world in the way she wanted. She had to push her own way through a sexist world and forge her own path. She did so despite a bad choice of first husband at a young age (she wanted to marry to get out from her parents’ control but ended up with a closeted homosexual man who abused her). She had three children in that first marriage. Later, she remarried, a good union that lasted 50 years and produced three more children.

I just so thoroughly enjoyed this memoir of a bright, talented, smart, determined, opinionated and funny woman.

RATING

Rated: High. Profanity includes 15 uses of strong language, around 40 instances of moderate profanity, about 15 uses of mild language, and about 25 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes lots of references to having specified and unspecified sexual partners but no detail; there are some crude references occasionally. There are a number of mentions of extramarital affairs being had by various people.

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