They drove all over the Western U.S., sleeping in a van and selling locals tool sets using her father's "golden tongue because he can talk his way in or out of anything." These sections are particularly engrossing as she adeptly captures a dysfunctional relationship that's steeped in love. These chapters alternate with those recalling summers spent with her salesman father, Jerry.
The author's clear-eyed prose keeps the pages turning as she depicts life with a deeply pious and insecure mother and an abusive stepfather. Ricks succeeds at making the Mormon themes clear without shoving Mormonism in your face.Originally self-published, Ricks's memoir recounts a childhood spent ping-ponging between two unstable parents. It shouldn’t be exceptional, but when the events of a story rely heavily on things that are peculiar to Mormonism, there’s a great temptation for the author to put his/her arm around the reader’s shoulder and say, “Let me tell you what Mormonism is like…” Or to write a story that is self-consciously dripping with Mormonisms. The fact that her family is Mormon is important for the story, yet Ricks does an exceptional job of keeping Mormonism as the background setting instead of focusing the camera on Mormonism itself. That’s the world of teenaged Ingrid Ricks in the story Hippie Boy: A Girl’s Story. Unfortunately, since he was often unreliable and occasionally violent, it wasn’t always the good kind of adventure - but it was a great escape from a home run by a crazy (and also occasionally violent) control-freak of a step-dad, who reeked of the meat that made up his entire food pyramid. Hippie Boy is a memoir about a teenage girl who escapes her abusive Mormon stepfather by joining her dad on the road as a tool-selling vagabond - until his arrest forces her to take charge of her life.ĭad was a master salesman who could talk anyone into anything, and life on the road with him was the wildest adventure any kid could possibly imagine. What would you do if your Mormon stepfather pinned you down and tried to cast Satan out of you? For 13 year old Ingrid, the answer is simple: RUN.
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