Agatha Christie: an autobiography

I read my first Agatha Christie mystery story when I was 13;  eighth grade English class.  And then there were none was assigned reading.  Before I even finished the book I was hooked.   On each subsequent trip to the bookstore, I picked out yet another Christie novel, eventually en massing most of her collection.  In my sophomore English class, we were told to choose an autobiography for an assignment.  I no longer remember the assignment, but I do remember reading Agatha Christie's autobiography.

I picked it up again recently after finding a used copy for cheap.  Agatha Christie's life was extremely interesting, and only partially due to her ability to create fascinating mystery stories. She lived through both World Wars at ages where she could easily remember details, married and divorced her first husband, and eventually married an archeologist she met whilst traveling alone through the Middle East.  Her autobiography was written over the course of 15 or so years, and is consequently rambling, disorganized, and skips from event to event with little regard for chronological order.  For instance, she mentions her brother returns home from overseas rather ill and Agatha and her sister found affordable healthcare for him.  The next mention of him is when she ran into an old army buddy of his while in the Middle East who asks after his health.  That's when we found out he had been dead by that point for a few years.  After a while I just adjusted to not knowing how old she was, how much time had passed between one event to the next, and just went with the flow.

Agatha Christie was a product of a late Victorian upbringing, and opens her autobiography with an anecdote of how happy her childhood had been. It's hard to believe in 2011 that she was not really formally schooled, and spent most of her childhood playing, traveling abroad, and playing make believe. Her only formal instruction came on the piano, and to a lesser extent, learning French from a French maid.

She was a girl in her late teens or early twenties when WWI broke out.  Like many unmarried girls of the time, she began working at a local hospital, first as a nurse, then in the dispensary.  As she's reminiscing of her time learning to mix potions for soldiers, it was easy to see where some of her writing ideas stemmed from:  poisons.  Her love affair with poisons showed up early in her novels and continued through most of her career.

Two of my favorite comments from the book are her interpretations of the evolution of parenting from the Victorian era to what she calls present day which I think is the fifties; and a comment about how women in Victorian England had much more power than given credit for.  Her long life offered a great social commentary on the tumultuous times in which she lived.

The one book of hers she frequently references is The murder of Roger Ackroyd, which I don't remember reading and now feel like I must.  She spent a significant time traveling around the Middle East, which is setting for most of my favorite Christie books.  In many instances it seems like she mentions writing as an afterthought.  I like that despite the sheer number of books, plays, and adaptations she wrote, she saw writing as first a hobby than a chose which sometimes interrupted her time spent traveling, reading, spending time with her husbands and only child.

I recently read that her home is now a museum, visited by many, many people annually.  It was opened to the public on a whim, and turned out to be incredibly successful.  Definitely something I'm adding to my bucket list...

Pink Boots and a Machete by Mireya Mayor

I've been on an autobiography kick lately, and actually stumbled across this title while reading a magazine on an airplane.  Mireya Mayor was previously unknown to me, but, as I learned from reading, she's a former NFL cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins turned explorer/scientist/host for the NatGeo channel.  The subtitle for the book is My Journey from NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer.


The book explains just that.  Born in Miami to a Cuban mother, Mireya grew up an only child in a female dominant household.  She pursued cheerleading after high school, made an NFL team cheer squad, then left to pursue academia and exploration.  This is where the book gets really interesting.

Mayor's explorations begin in Madagascar studying lemurs.  She ends up in Africa and South America various times studying biology; giraffes, wildebeests, gorillas, lemurs, etc.  The title of 'pink boots' comes from her notoriety for wearing pink boots in the field, although sadly none of the photos of her included in the book have her actually wearing pink boots...

An explorer she may be, but a writer she is not.  I found the book a little too chaotic, even though she has an awesome story to tell.  First she's in Africa as an undergrad, then South America almost dying, then back in Africa as a grad student, then working for National Geographic.  In a quest to include almost every place she's ever been, she left out almost all things personal, which made the story dry.  Her travels are incredibly interesting, don't mistake me, but I finished the book learning nothing about the storyteller.  She tells an anecdote about almost dying in Guyana, but doesn't elaborate much on the details.  That's interesting stuff!

Her stories about giraffes were awesome, as I'm a giraffe lover.  I thought her best travel stories were worrying about where to pee with an all male group, using tampons to light fires in the rainforest, picking off ticks, getting infections, seeing gorillas mating, and running out of food, rather than the actual  biology of it.  Discovering new species is awesome, but so is finding out you found someone to date in the rainforest.

I'm not actually sure how many years her career has spanned, although she did note she finished her PhD.  Not only does she jumps locations a lot, the sense of time is all over the place.  She'll describe a trip and then suddenly its years later.  I also thought her writing tended towards the cliched, not what I expected from someone who's written a PhD dissertation. I think she has an amazing story to tell, but just not the writing skill to tell it in the most engaging way.

I definitely enjoyed reading it though.  It reads really well.  There's no scientific jargon to putter through and she spends time talking about mundane things like lipgloss.  On her first trip, and subsequent others, she brings with her a LBD (little black dress).  I could have done without the girly complaining and the mention of using a blowdryer in the middle of a rainforest.  I know that's crass to say, since its her story to tell.  If its the truth, then so be it, but I  dislike woman who pride themselves on being independent, kick ass women, then worry while in the middle of nowhere about how they look.  It's a strange paradox.

As far as autobiographies go, I've never read one even remotely close to compare it to.  That says a lot about Mayor right there.