Austin Chapter
Reader's Guide
September 2002
Too Close to the Falls
by Catherine Gildiner
A poignant memoir about one intrepid, unforgettable girl and her extraordinary childhood in 1950s small-town America. Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy. Already able to read road maps, she accompanies Roy the deliveryman on his routes. In memories that are by turns hilarious and deeply moving, she shares some of her more fantastic deliveries-sleeping pills to Marilyn Monroe (in town filming Niagara), sedatives to Mad Bear, a violent Tuscarora chief, and fungus cream to Warty, the gentle, and painfully lonely operator of the town dump...
- In what ways was Cathy’s upbringing unconventional?
- What were some of the more endearing events in her life? Do you believe they are true, or have truth to them?
- What did you think about Cathy’s relationship with Roy? In what ways was it unusual? How were the two of them more than just a delivery service?
- What were some advantages of being a tomboy vs.a "Lennon Sister’s paper doll girl"? What about disadvantages?
- Cathy worries about being put in the mental hospital: (p.112) "I’d be their youngest patient and they’d have to shorten a little straitjacket especially for me." What were some other examples of her sense of humor and imagination.
- Cathy had several phases of friendships: Roy, the Bloods, and Miranda.How did they shape her character? Can you identify different "phases of friendship" in your life?
- p.135 "I guess we all remember moments in time when we realize some truth about the world, something much bigger than what is happening to us at the moment." What was this moment for Cathy? Can you remember any times like this in your life where everything seemed a little different afterward?
- What qualities exist in a good memoir? Did this book qualify?
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