Life Span: Impressions of a Lifetime Spent Crossing and Recrossing the Golden Gate Bridge

by Molly Giles

LIFE SPAN, Impressions of A Lifetime Spent Crossing and Recrossing the Golden Gate Bridge , the first book of nonfiction from award-winning fiction writer Molly Giles, is a memoir in flash form that distills her experiences crossing the Golden Gate Bridge from 1945 to 2023. Every transit chronicles her journey to becoming a writer. The story of a woman with brains and desires who dared follow her ambitions.

Genres: Fiction

190 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 4, 2024

About the author

Molly Giles’ newest collection of short stories, Wife With Knife, recently won the Leap Frog Fiction Contest and will be published in October of 2021. She has published four previous prize winning collections of stories: Rough Translations, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Boston Globe Award, and the the Bay Area Book Reviewers’ Award; Creek Walk, which won the Small Press Best Fiction Award, the California Commonwealth Silver Medal for Fiction, and was a New York Times Notable Book; Bothered, which won the Split Oak Press Flash Fiction Award and All the Wrong Places, which won the Spokane Prize for Fiction. She has also published a novel, Iron Shoes, and an ebook of stories, Three for the Road. Her work has been included in numerous anthologies including the O.Henry and Pushcart Prize (twice) and she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Marin Arts Council, and the Arkansas Arts Council.

Molly has taught fiction writing at San Francisco State University, University of Hawaii in Manoa, San Jose State University, the National University of Ireland at Galway, the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and at numerous writing conferences, including The Community of Writers and Naropa. She has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Book Reviewing, been awarded residences at MacDowell, Yadoo, and The House of Literature in Paros, Greece, and has edited many published writers, including Amy Tan.

Reviews

[Christy Stillwell]

I read this in 48 hours. You don’t often encounter a memoir that is a page turner, certainly not one that covers, as indicated by title, an entire life span. The book is brilliantly crafted, a memoir in flash, really. Each year of the author’s life is covered in a vignette. Her life circles around children, love affairs and always, always, writing. I admired how this woman chose herself, her feelings, and her values again and again, even when it meant scrambling to raise two kids on teaching/book reviewer’s salary. One of the most honest accounts of writing and the writing life I’ve encountered. Being inside a novel, slogging to finish, the boredom, the naps, the decisions one faces. A lot like life! This is another win from WTAW Press; how I love indie presses and their commitment to non-formulaic honesty. Molly Giles! So happy you spent your life like this.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars = I wish I could be this brave in writing about my own life!

Reading this book has been like watching a timelapse of a rose sprouting, budding, unfolding, shining for all the world to see, then starting to wilt just a little bit. It was interesting to see the bits of history thrown in, but I think I was most interested with Molly's evolving views on mother-daughter relationships.

What amazed and impressed me those most was that Molly never flinches or apologizes when describing her own screwups. She notes their impact but does not treat them as things to shrink away from, just things that make up her life. I really admire her for that.

This book is for anyone who enjoys memoir, flash, or both. Highly recommended.

[Andrew Roe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Known for her award-winning fiction, Molly Giles delivers a knockout work of non-fiction with Life Span. The book documents her years as a writer, daughter, mother, grandmother, and much more, as she crosses (and recrosses) the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. The chapters (starting in 1945 and ending in 2023) consist of short vignettes, each reading like a mini masterpiece and charting the poignant everyday moments in life that make and sometimes break us. One of those rare books that you find yourself devouring but then force yourself to slow down because you want to savor every page and don’t want it to end.

[G.P. Gottlieb · Rating 5 out of 5]

In short, beautiful vignettes, Molly Giles looks back at moments of her childhood, her mistakes and missteps, getting pregnant at eighteen, marrying her boyfriend and having a second child, divorcing, marrying a second time but failing to find the happiness she knows she deserves. As the decades passed, she edited many well-known novels and popped out four story collections, two novels, and this brutally honest memoir.

I was honored to interview Molly for a New Books Network podcast: https://newbooksnetwork.com/life-span

[Dorothy Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Above all, I was struck by Molly’s strength and her singular, particular, definable voice maintained over decades, despite the vagaries of the publishing industry, life, relationships, motherhood, and all that. And yes, I could relate to much of what she had to say. Read my full review in Hippocampus Magazine https://hippocampusmagazine.com/2024/...

[Janet Wertman · Rating 4 out of 5]

So powerful. Unflinching honesty is a wonderful thing in writing. I was a little puzzled by the ending, but I suspect that was my own fault, that I was not paying
attention when I should have…or that my memory is just not what it used to be!

[Fatima · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this. Each chapter is a year in her life. They are short chapters so in each year, we get a glimpse of some event in her life and we get to know her slowly over the years. It's perfect.

[Monica Voicu Denniston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adored this but the ending felt a bit abrupt to me.

[Cara · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF.