Product Description

Transplanting Southern roots to southern Africa, Ginger Mauney has earned the acceptance of a troop of baboons, unraveled mysteries of life and death in an elephant herd, and raised her young son in the wilds of Etosha National Park. During her career as a television journalist, Sara James paid her own way to cover the war in Nicaragua, exposed slavery in Sudan, plunged to the grave site of the Titanic, but struggled to balance work with marriage and motherhood. Though the two lead seemingly opposite lives, there is much they share. A hometown in Richmond, Virginia, an attraction to life on the razor's edge, and a past. Now, in this heartfelt memoir, Sara and Ginger alternately narrate the story of their twenties, thirties, and forties through the lens of a friendship that has spanned thousands of miles and more than thirty years, and reveal how they dared to reinvent their lives, just as it seemed that everything was falling apart.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1367097 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Mauney, a freelance wildlife filmmaker based in Namibia, and James, a news correspondent for NBC Nightly News, Dateline and other programs, have maintained a remarkable friendship since they were both 12-year-old girls growing up in the genteel circles of Richmond, Va. While their mothers' generation was expected to marry socially suitable husbands, their daughters grew up with wider possibilities. Mauney left Richmond to become arm-candy for a world-class tennis player, who dropped her just when she was beginning to look for a wedding ring. James was too busy building a career in broadcasting to put much energy into finding a man. It wasn't until Mauney's romance hit bottom that the two became close again. In alternating chapters, they record their unfolding lives from their mid-20s through their 40s, with Mauney working in rural Africa and James in fast-lane New York City. Their divergent paths turn out to be quite parallel in the end, as they contemplate their children's developing friendship. By giving sensitive support to each other at key moments, these two women both found their way to balancing marriage, motherhood and creative careers. Their book—a sweet summer read—pays tribute to the advances that feminism brought to a generation of young women and to the enduring value of female friendship. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
As teenage girls are wont to do, James and Mauney first bonded over shared dreams of lives that would take them far from their hometown, lives that would combine challenging careers with travel to exotic locations, where they would court danger, and fall in love with men who carried well-worn passports and spoke with foreign accents. Such dreams, of course, are typical of young girls everywhere, yet James and Mauney made good on their promises, though the paths they took were not always smooth and straight. James would live in the lap of urban comfort in Manhattan, where she would become an award-winning journalist for NBC News, while Mauney eked out an unsparing existence in desolate African outback base camps as a wildlife documentary filmmaker. Through 30 years, they would see careers explode and relationships implode, and though they often experienced life's sweetest successes and harshest tragedies separately, emotionally they were always together. With candor, insight, and wisdom, James and Mauney joyfully celebrate the inspiring essence of friendship. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Two great friends, two fascinating individual stories, and a memoir that reads like a novel…” (Lian Dolan, author of Satellite Sisters' UnCommon Senses )

“Dateline NBC’s Sara James and her great friend Ginger Mauney have mastered the art of staying connected.” (Today Show )

“Their book…pays tribute to the advances that feminism brought…and to the enduring value of female friendship. (Publishers Weekly )

“Filled with…concerns about love, work, men, marriage and motherhood…that could be a favorite of women’s reading groups.” (Kirkus Reviews )

“Rich tales…A unique window into modern women’s quest for meaning and calm in an ever more chaotic world.” (Gwendolyn Bounds, author of Little Chapel on the River: A Pub, A Town, and the Search for What Matters Most )

“The Bach Minuet of memoirs…two vastly different stories…woven into the other to form a single, gorgeous melody.” (Deborah Copaken Kogan, author of Shutterbabe and the forthcoming Suicide Wood )

“With grit, honesty, and humor…Their engrossing tale of friendship celebrates the importance of having a confidante.” (More Magazine, HOT SUMMER READS )

“James and Mauney write about their friendship . . . in a way that will leave you saying ‘Me too.’” (Richmond Times-Dispatch )

“Sometimes the most unlikely people become best friends…a wonderful book.” (CBS This Morning )

“An honest, funny, often wrenching memoir that follows childhood friends…as they…withstand the ups and downs of marriage and kids.” (Parenting Magazine )