Cherry Hill: A Childhood Reimagined

by Jona Frank, Laura Dern (Contributor), Imogene Wolodarsky (Contributor)

A memoir by photographic artist Jona Frank told in captivating stories and poignant images with a cast of actors, including Laura Dern and Imogene Wolodarsky, Cherry Hill tells the story of one girl's suburban youth and deliverance. Cherry Hill is a multimedia memoir of photographic artist Jona Frank's upbringing in - and flight from - a stifling suburban household. Told in words and evocative photographs, Frank's account of her childhood struggles with a repressive mother, mentally ill brother, and overwhelming expectations is leavened with episodes from her rich interior world. Akin to a graphic novel, this hybrid of personal essay and photography breaks open the memoir format, detailing the life of a young artist as she spends her days dreaming of a friendship with Emily Dickinson, longing for Bruce Springsteen and eschewing the rules of femininity. Frank employs a cinematic approach to construct vivid scenes from her youth. Using elaborately dressed sets, era-specific wardrobes, and multiple actors to portray herself as a child, Frank refashions her memories into vibrant tableaux. Strikingly, Frank cast Academy Award-winning actor Laura Dern in the role of her strict and complicated mother in a performance as bravura as her film and television work. As Frank outgrows the confines of her environment and suffocating domestic life, discovering art and photography as the path to her personal fulfillment, she plots her ultimate escape. A unique photographic storytelling project reminiscent of such classics as Fun Home and The Best We Could Do, Cherry Hill is an intimate self-portrait of what it takes to break free of convention and answer the question, "Who am I meant to be?"

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

368 pages, Hardcover

Published November 3, 2020

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this memoir in pictures, which really brought back the 70s, psychedelic wallpaper, suburbia, being raised Catholic, Dorothy Hamill's, and skateboarding.

[cece · Rating 5 out of 5]

enjoyed thoroughly, nice kind of picture book

[Margie · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, I found this almost painful to read. I could feel the depression and dismay in Jona Frank’s home as she was growing up. Her one brother’s drug use and mental breakdown was another sign all was not well in the idyllic home and town. I felt and saw her disconnect with her upbringing and what her parents wanted for her, wanted her to be. Taking a photography class in high school gave her a way to see the world in a new way. Then finally going away to college opened the door a crack to a different world beyond the restrictions of her home, town and upbringing. “To thine own self be true.” Jona Frank finally found the courage to break out and break away to find her true self and her calling. For women it’s always more difficult.

[Glen Helfand]

Jona Frank's look at her childhood and youth is a hybrid affair-- a written memoir illustrated with photographs of restaged memories. Hers was a mid-century, middle American youth. It was not a childhood riddled with high drama, but with the realistic grade of struggles with mental illness and the conformity of suburban expectation. Her rebellion was held inside for much of her youth, though comes to power when she discovers her affinity for photography, a medium that can represent so much. The writing is clear and simple as she describes a mother-- played by Laura Dern in the pictures-- who can be simultaneously loving and distant, and dismissive of the goals her one daughter, in a house of boys, harbors. Like a number of memoirs, and by the design of this project, Cherry Hill is a book of moments, written and recreated. But it's also a little loose conceptually. Is the writing meant to be as steeped in artifice as the photographs? The latter are redolent in obvious wigs and fetishistic recreations of mid-century suburban interiors? And what to make of the addition of actual (?) vintage diary entries towards the end, the period of emancipation? She clearly has worked through many things with this project, but as a book, it raises compelling questions about form.

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw an exhibit of Jona Frank's photography a the Bowdoin College of Art, and it hit me in ways that really surprised me. I hadn't been prepared for the gut-punch that photos of a suburban childhood would deliver. In this book, which expands on Frank's exhibit, Frank talks about her childhood: her distant mother whom she always wanted to please; the complicated relationships with each of her brothers; her attempts to be what everyone else wanted and expected of her while questioning what--or if--she herself wants.

[Mark Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this for Eileen to read. She grew up next door to Cherry Hill just a few years ahead of Jona Frank. Eileen loved this. After the first chapter about art class, she said it reminded her of checking out the same book time after time through grade school. Next chapter in the book was about checking out the same book... Fortunately it wasn't the same book - that would have been too spooky. This one really resonated with my wife.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m generally not a fan of memoirs but I found Jona’s book to be so real and in parts relatable. Maybe it was my own struggle against pink and green gingham floral wallpaper that was my mother’s bedroom dream vs. my own. Behind every door, in every family and in each of us there’s a story we don’t always share and people don’t hear. I thought this book was a good reminder to be empathetic and find your own path. The photos were wonderful.

[Jennifer Van Oosbree · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is as the title states: A Childhood Reimagined. This autobiographical recollection of a girl growing into an independent woman is half told through words and half told through photographs that recreate what the author experienced. I enjoyed the photos mixed in with the words, however, I wanted more from the writing.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frank is a few years older than me but we’re just close enough in age that I really felt this memoir of ‘70s and ‘80s Roman Catholic suburbia and silence and outbursts and Holly Hobbie imagery. Just a wonderful piece of work.

[Marilyn Beyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful memoir of childhood through the eyes of a child. Painful at times...the depression within the walls of the home in Cherry Hills was almost suffocating at times...she had to get out in order to breathe, to actually live...

[Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection. This book is absolute perfection. One of my favorites ever.

[.]

Chapter 23 ❤️

[Abby Stathis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The photographs and prose worked together so well. This book sated me as an artist, a reader, and a writer.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm enthralled by this memoir--the mix of photographs and writing is beautiful and poetic and evokes a strong nostalgia.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a gem of a book. Photos and text together are perfect.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Related to this so much…visually and emotionally stunning.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reviews of this book over-hyped it. I enjoyed reminiscing about the 80's with her but did not find the photos that compelling and the story was flat.