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Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury
A memoir of coming of age in a conservative Southern family in postwar America.
To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies. Two world wars and the depression that connected them had unleashed a torrent of expectations and dissatisfactions--not only in global affairs but in American society and Americans' lives.
To be a privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was to be expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For young Drew Gilpin Faust, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial privilege proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become "well adjusted" and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was the necessary price of survival. During the 1960s, through her love of learning and her active engagement in the civil rights, student, and antiwar movements, Faust forged a path of her own--one that would eventually lead her to become a historian of the very conflicts that were instrumental in shaping the world she grew up in.
Culminating in the upheavals of 1968, Necessary Trouble captures a time of rapid change and fierce reaction in one young woman's life, tracing the transformations and aftershocks that we continue to grapple with today.
Includes black-and-white images
To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies. Two world wars and the depression that connected them had unleashed a torrent of expectations and dissatisfactions--not only in global affairs but in American society and Americans' lives.
To be a privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was to be expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For young Drew Gilpin Faust, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial privilege proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become "well adjusted" and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was the necessary price of survival. During the 1960s, through her love of learning and her active engagement in the civil rights, student, and antiwar movements, Faust forged a path of her own--one that would eventually lead her to become a historian of the very conflicts that were instrumental in shaping the world she grew up in.
Culminating in the upheavals of 1968, Necessary Trouble captures a time of rapid change and fierce reaction in one young woman's life, tracing the transformations and aftershocks that we continue to grapple with today.
Includes black-and-white images
320 pages, Hardcover
First published August 22, 2023
867 people are currently reading
6920 people want to read
About the author
Drew Gilpin Faust
25 books183 followersCatharine Drew Gilpin Faust is an American historian who served as the 28th president of Harvard University, the first woman in that role. She was Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or graduate degree from Harvard and the first to have been raised in the South. Faust is also the founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She has been ranked among the world's most powerful women by Forbes, including as the 33rd most powerful in 2014.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 372 reviews
September 30, 2023
I’ve enjoyed listening to Drew Gilpin Faust’s memoir Necessary Trouble over the past few days. Reading about this historian’s life experiences was fascinating, as she touched on some of the most significant events of the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries.
Faust was born in 1947 in New York City but was raised in a ‘well-to-do’ family in segregated Virginia. She tells her story by introducing us to her family. I was absorbed by the stories of her family’s (grandfather, father, and brothers) involvement WWI and WWII. This provides an excellent context to understand how Faust ended up the way she did, a woman with a formidable sense of social justice, a strong moral compass. A ‘good lefty’ methinks.
As a young girl Faust saw the freedoms her brothers enjoyed and wanted that for herself. This put her at odds with her mother, something that lasted until her mother’s death when Faust was a young woman. I remember her saying, she “didn’t want to return home when her mother was alive, but also didn’t want to return home when her mother had passed”. That was so sad to read.
As a college student in the 1960’s, Faust was an active student advocate as well as being heavily involved in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements. I found her experiences in segregated Virginia illuminating, it really wasn’t so long ago.
This story also got me thinking about the never-ending conga-line of important social causes humanity needs to confront and deal with moving forward. To be sure, the 20 century was packed full of significant events and important social issues to be addressed. But this continues – today we have inequality, climate change, LGBTQI+, populism, conflict, AI and so, so much more. This made me feel a little pessimistic (and I’m a glass half-full of cream kind of bloke) about humanity’s ability to deal with these matters.
There is much more in this memoir, it is worth a read. I love the way this woman has a strong moral compass and was and is willing to be active in making this world a better place to live. I like her.
4 Stars
Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an audio version of this book, in exchange for a review.
Faust was born in 1947 in New York City but was raised in a ‘well-to-do’ family in segregated Virginia. She tells her story by introducing us to her family. I was absorbed by the stories of her family’s (grandfather, father, and brothers) involvement WWI and WWII. This provides an excellent context to understand how Faust ended up the way she did, a woman with a formidable sense of social justice, a strong moral compass. A ‘good lefty’ methinks.
As a young girl Faust saw the freedoms her brothers enjoyed and wanted that for herself. This put her at odds with her mother, something that lasted until her mother’s death when Faust was a young woman. I remember her saying, she “didn’t want to return home when her mother was alive, but also didn’t want to return home when her mother had passed”. That was so sad to read.
As a college student in the 1960’s, Faust was an active student advocate as well as being heavily involved in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements. I found her experiences in segregated Virginia illuminating, it really wasn’t so long ago.
This story also got me thinking about the never-ending conga-line of important social causes humanity needs to confront and deal with moving forward. To be sure, the 20 century was packed full of significant events and important social issues to be addressed. But this continues – today we have inequality, climate change, LGBTQI+, populism, conflict, AI and so, so much more. This made me feel a little pessimistic (and I’m a glass half-full of cream kind of bloke) about humanity’s ability to deal with these matters.
There is much more in this memoir, it is worth a read. I love the way this woman has a strong moral compass and was and is willing to be active in making this world a better place to live. I like her.
4 Stars
Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an audio version of this book, in exchange for a review.
August 23, 2023
Drew Gilpin Faust’s memoir is that of an historian, one born into a privileged American southern family but who chafed at the various traditions and boundaries this privilege brought her. She was born in 1947, part of the baby boom generation, and very early wanted the freedoms her brothers seemed to have. She also wanted to learn, more than her mother had ever aspired to. This set up an adversarial relationship that never was resolved. She apparently asked uncomfortable questions early in life after hearing a news article about black schools being closed. Her sense of right and wrong formed young and does not appear to have altered in the years since.
In this memoir, Faust takes us through her life as a child in Virginia, to her days at Concord Academy in Massachusetts and on to college at Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania. Along the way, the ideas of justice, right and wrong, freedom, all develop more and more as this child of the 1950s becomes a teenager of the 1960s. She is involved in some of the major movements of the time and her involvement grew organically from the beginnings we have read about from the start. From a tour of Communist Eastern Europe, to the civil rights movement and Freedom Summer, and to the early days of the anti-war movement during the war in Vietnam, Faust had a role of some kind in events many of us saw at a distance.
Here the historian is defining herself through her lived history. From her father and grandfather who fought in WWII and WWI respectively, lost great uncles and others, there is a legacy of service coupled with the patriarchal background in her family. Sons were called, not daughters. Drew Gilpin Faust certainly found her own way to meet that call from her country.
Recommended for readers of memoirs and history.
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for a copy of this book. This review is my own.
In this memoir, Faust takes us through her life as a child in Virginia, to her days at Concord Academy in Massachusetts and on to college at Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania. Along the way, the ideas of justice, right and wrong, freedom, all develop more and more as this child of the 1950s becomes a teenager of the 1960s. She is involved in some of the major movements of the time and her involvement grew organically from the beginnings we have read about from the start. From a tour of Communist Eastern Europe, to the civil rights movement and Freedom Summer, and to the early days of the anti-war movement during the war in Vietnam, Faust had a role of some kind in events many of us saw at a distance.
Here the historian is defining herself through her lived history. From her father and grandfather who fought in WWII and WWI respectively, lost great uncles and others, there is a legacy of service coupled with the patriarchal background in her family. Sons were called, not daughters. Drew Gilpin Faust certainly found her own way to meet that call from her country.
Recommended for readers of memoirs and history.
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for a copy of this book. This review is my own.
February 4, 2023
I was very excited to read this memoir from a historian I have long admired. More than that, the description of this book seemed to combine many of my historical interests. It also didn’t hurt that the cover photo is the spitting image of my mom who was born a few years after the author (though my mother certainly lived a very different life in rural Alabama).
It started off interesting as I felt that the author’s vulnerability coupled with extensive family history underscored the tension at the heart of her own memories of coming of age in 1950s Virginia and the cracks that reverberated across her family’s generations. For millennials like me, I think the historical record woven into the author’s own life events would be perceived by many readers of my generation as insightful — particularly the examination of femininity. I even found myself jotting down perspectives I wanted to ask my mother & grandmother their takes on which I likely would have not considered had I not read this book.
Yet as the book went on, I felt less of the author’s honest self-inspection and more a sense of mere self-positioning within historical recollections. It was at that moment (specifically the chapter with many pointed Martin Luther King Jr. quotes) that I began to wonder why the author wrote this memoir or who her intended audience might be. It suddenly went from an endearingly conflicted childhood to myopic young adulthood with a tone-deaf sense of white saviorism. Had the book done more to avoid speaking for large swarths of people (the second half of the book generously employs “we” when describing a countercultural moment that deserves more nuance than granted) and involved more emphasis on an examination of her own bias & privilege (as the book description implies & the epilogue actually does the best job of — though far too late), then I think I would have no question as to the why of this memoir & a higher star rating.
Still I am grateful to NetGalley & Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to read this ARC. Not every memoir is for every person, and, although I was disappointed overall, I encourage those who would like to gain a certain perspective & historical account of American youth in the 1950s/1960s to pick this one up as you will get that told in no uncertain terms.
It started off interesting as I felt that the author’s vulnerability coupled with extensive family history underscored the tension at the heart of her own memories of coming of age in 1950s Virginia and the cracks that reverberated across her family’s generations. For millennials like me, I think the historical record woven into the author’s own life events would be perceived by many readers of my generation as insightful — particularly the examination of femininity. I even found myself jotting down perspectives I wanted to ask my mother & grandmother their takes on which I likely would have not considered had I not read this book.
Yet as the book went on, I felt less of the author’s honest self-inspection and more a sense of mere self-positioning within historical recollections. It was at that moment (specifically the chapter with many pointed Martin Luther King Jr. quotes) that I began to wonder why the author wrote this memoir or who her intended audience might be. It suddenly went from an endearingly conflicted childhood to myopic young adulthood with a tone-deaf sense of white saviorism. Had the book done more to avoid speaking for large swarths of people (the second half of the book generously employs “we” when describing a countercultural moment that deserves more nuance than granted) and involved more emphasis on an examination of her own bias & privilege (as the book description implies & the epilogue actually does the best job of — though far too late), then I think I would have no question as to the why of this memoir & a higher star rating.
Still I am grateful to NetGalley & Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to read this ARC. Not every memoir is for every person, and, although I was disappointed overall, I encourage those who would like to gain a certain perspective & historical account of American youth in the 1950s/1960s to pick this one up as you will get that told in no uncertain terms.
January 19, 2025
The title Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury caught my attention, then I read the synopsis and knew I wanted to listen to this memoir.
Drew Gilpin Faust was the 28th president of Harvard University from 2007 - 2018. She was the first female president, the first president without a Harvard degree, and the first president raised in the South. Her education and career record is impressive!
Faust's family roots run deep in the culture of the South and her upbringing was one of great privilege. She offers an intense depth of family details through the generations concerning the military, wars, gender roles, racial segregation, and how it created a rebellion in her.
Raised in the 1950s, and attending college in the 1960s, Faust knew from an early age she wanted something more and different than what she witnessed all around her. She was socially and politically aware and actively engaged in the civil rights and anti-war movements.
This book gave the author the avenue she wanted to set the record straight from her perspective about this period in history. For me, it would have had more validating if "we" was used less and "I" was used more. I'm cautious of someone who speaks for others rather than primarily for themselves.
I enjoy a memoir that is read in the author's voice however Faust's voice was monotone, and that may be why the narration began to feel repetitive and long. Perhaps the author should have stepped aside and let a professional do the audio work.
As someone who also grew up in the Midcentury, I believe I was looking for something entirely different from this book than what I felt when I was finished listening. 3.5⭐
Drew Gilpin Faust was the 28th president of Harvard University from 2007 - 2018. She was the first female president, the first president without a Harvard degree, and the first president raised in the South. Her education and career record is impressive!
Faust's family roots run deep in the culture of the South and her upbringing was one of great privilege. She offers an intense depth of family details through the generations concerning the military, wars, gender roles, racial segregation, and how it created a rebellion in her.
Raised in the 1950s, and attending college in the 1960s, Faust knew from an early age she wanted something more and different than what she witnessed all around her. She was socially and politically aware and actively engaged in the civil rights and anti-war movements.
This book gave the author the avenue she wanted to set the record straight from her perspective about this period in history. For me, it would have had more validating if "we" was used less and "I" was used more. I'm cautious of someone who speaks for others rather than primarily for themselves.
I enjoy a memoir that is read in the author's voice however Faust's voice was monotone, and that may be why the narration began to feel repetitive and long. Perhaps the author should have stepped aside and let a professional do the audio work.
As someone who also grew up in the Midcentury, I believe I was looking for something entirely different from this book than what I felt when I was finished listening. 3.5⭐
December 10, 2025
Excellent with flaws. Only covers youth and 60's. My expectations were more full autobiography.
I did like this biography some. Good at explaining the environment the author grew up in. I believe the expectation is that the reader is suppose to know who is the author is and why she is important in the scheme of things. I knew she had been president of Harvard University and that was about it. I was hoping to hear more about her journey to get to this important post and what lead her in that direction. The other part of that was her "southern" upbringing. To me Virginia is hardly the deep South. I've lived in both for a time and there is a vast difference. The book does cover some of her early upbring but mostly it is about her late high school and college years, with heavy emphasis on the Civil Rights movement of the mid 1960's. The author is a historian and in that respect I expected more history rather than her own self righteous take on her involvement and the sacrifices she made (missing midterms) to attend events.
I am being a little hard on her but I wanted so much more from this book. It was quite idealistic and dramatically self-centered at times that took away from the narrative for me. It is very well written but just not the historical centered account from author's view rather than so focused on how she personally attended events and marched. Second I wanted to know more about how her views were tempered as she got out in the world after college. This is beyond the scope of this book. It ends with her graduation from college.
3.5 to 4 stars. I vacillate back and forth. Good but just not what I was expecting.
I did like this biography some. Good at explaining the environment the author grew up in. I believe the expectation is that the reader is suppose to know who is the author is and why she is important in the scheme of things. I knew she had been president of Harvard University and that was about it. I was hoping to hear more about her journey to get to this important post and what lead her in that direction. The other part of that was her "southern" upbringing. To me Virginia is hardly the deep South. I've lived in both for a time and there is a vast difference. The book does cover some of her early upbring but mostly it is about her late high school and college years, with heavy emphasis on the Civil Rights movement of the mid 1960's. The author is a historian and in that respect I expected more history rather than her own self righteous take on her involvement and the sacrifices she made (missing midterms) to attend events.
I am being a little hard on her but I wanted so much more from this book. It was quite idealistic and dramatically self-centered at times that took away from the narrative for me. It is very well written but just not the historical centered account from author's view rather than so focused on how she personally attended events and marched. Second I wanted to know more about how her views were tempered as she got out in the world after college. This is beyond the scope of this book. It ends with her graduation from college.
3.5 to 4 stars. I vacillate back and forth. Good but just not what I was expecting.
November 4, 2024
This memoir is of a life similar to many from the boomer generation—growing up in the 50s when roles of men and women were clearly defined, and then going to college in the 60s which was filled with war and civil rights protests and rejection many traditional roles and rules. This was the author's trajectory in her younger years except that the shift from the 50s to 60s was even more extreme than for most of us. This is because she was raised among the 1950s traditional white southern traditions of rural northern Virginia and then in the 1960s college years she participated in some of the demonstrations that most of us only aspired to.
Some of the author's recollections of life during the 1950s were a bit jarring when compared to today's values. For example cigarette advertisements in Life Magazine which included endorsements from doctors. It makes one wonder how any of us survived.
Early in the book we learned about the author's fraught relationship with her mother who died while the author was still attending college. Her mother had not encouraged her daughter's academic achievements but only wanted for her to be a lady of the southern belle variety. Her father remained on the sidelines of the family battles.
Beginning at age 13 the author attended boarding school and latter college at Bryn Mawr, so she received the finest education money could buy for a woman at the time (Harvard, Princeton, Yale were all male at the time). Her summer vacation at age 15 was spent touring Eastern Europe, in 1964 the following year she participated in Black protests and voter education efforts, and then in 1965 she joined the Montgomery March.
The author is from a privileged background, however her academic success and becoming involved in civil rights and war protest actions were the result of her own initiative. The book ends with her graduation in 1968 from college, but her biography indicates that she continued to have many more achievements in life.
Some of the author's recollections of life during the 1950s were a bit jarring when compared to today's values. For example cigarette advertisements in Life Magazine which included endorsements from doctors. It makes one wonder how any of us survived.
Early in the book we learned about the author's fraught relationship with her mother who died while the author was still attending college. Her mother had not encouraged her daughter's academic achievements but only wanted for her to be a lady of the southern belle variety. Her father remained on the sidelines of the family battles.
Beginning at age 13 the author attended boarding school and latter college at Bryn Mawr, so she received the finest education money could buy for a woman at the time (Harvard, Princeton, Yale were all male at the time). Her summer vacation at age 15 was spent touring Eastern Europe, in 1964 the following year she participated in Black protests and voter education efforts, and then in 1965 she joined the Montgomery March.
The author is from a privileged background, however her academic success and becoming involved in civil rights and war protest actions were the result of her own initiative. The book ends with her graduation in 1968 from college, but her biography indicates that she continued to have many more achievements in life.
August 22, 2023
Oof - I have a lot to say about this one, and have been stewing on my review for a few days now.
The book itself: I felt this one was slow, but had little nuggets of interesting information. It seemed to gloss over a lot of time, while not really taking the time to look inward and really see why things fell into place that way. It felt more like blips of a story that a relative would tell you over drinks one night. Just high level things that make you realize that person had a life you may not have acknowledged or been aware of before.
The title: I know that in the notes after, Faust takes time to explain why the book is titled in the way that it is, and shares that the blessing was given. However, it made me really look at this book and the story it tells and wonder - what trouble does she think she actually found? What times did she risk literally anything to be where she was? She risked a bad grade on one paper. She risked being woken up by a security guard on a campus. But beyond that, was she aware of the risks she took, or did she do it blindly because she felt drawn, and never really understood the true potential costs? After all, courage without wisdom is foolishness.
Overall, when I finished the book, I felt a bit icky. Although this is obviously her story to tell, I can’t help but feel like it’s a grab to secure her place in the history of the movement, and I’m not sure who this book was aimed at.
I do believe it is a perspective of someone who lived through it, but I’m just not sure this perspective should be the frontrunner here.
2.5 stars rounded up.
Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
The book itself: I felt this one was slow, but had little nuggets of interesting information. It seemed to gloss over a lot of time, while not really taking the time to look inward and really see why things fell into place that way. It felt more like blips of a story that a relative would tell you over drinks one night. Just high level things that make you realize that person had a life you may not have acknowledged or been aware of before.
The title: I know that in the notes after, Faust takes time to explain why the book is titled in the way that it is, and shares that the blessing was given. However, it made me really look at this book and the story it tells and wonder - what trouble does she think she actually found? What times did she risk literally anything to be where she was? She risked a bad grade on one paper. She risked being woken up by a security guard on a campus. But beyond that, was she aware of the risks she took, or did she do it blindly because she felt drawn, and never really understood the true potential costs? After all, courage without wisdom is foolishness.
Overall, when I finished the book, I felt a bit icky. Although this is obviously her story to tell, I can’t help but feel like it’s a grab to secure her place in the history of the movement, and I’m not sure who this book was aimed at.
I do believe it is a perspective of someone who lived through it, but I’m just not sure this perspective should be the frontrunner here.
2.5 stars rounded up.
Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
November 18, 2023
3.5 🐘🐘🐘
A walk down memory lane for this baby boomer.
A walk down memory lane for this baby boomer.
January 4, 2024
The 28th president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust was the first woman and the first Southerner in the job. She had a relatively long tenure, 2007-2018, given the way things are going now. This memoir outlines her family's family and "how she got to be that way," but what it really does is show how she sprung singular from the head of Athena, the war goddess.
It seems Faust was always destined to fight against the strictures and unfairnesses she observed from her place in restricted White southern society. But her way of telling the story chafed. Perhaps it is because I am nearly her age and I ache to think no one was able to break down the barriers behind which her mother hid before her early death. Faust is smart, well-educated and articulate but she chafes, knowing so much.
She ends her memoir at the time of her graduation from college. One presumes she went on to honors and studying history. I remember when she was chosen to lead Harvard--I was impressed and proud, being a woman myself. I admire what she was able to do but I don't have to like her, do I?
It seems Faust was always destined to fight against the strictures and unfairnesses she observed from her place in restricted White southern society. But her way of telling the story chafed. Perhaps it is because I am nearly her age and I ache to think no one was able to break down the barriers behind which her mother hid before her early death. Faust is smart, well-educated and articulate but she chafes, knowing so much.
She ends her memoir at the time of her graduation from college. One presumes she went on to honors and studying history. I remember when she was chosen to lead Harvard--I was impressed and proud, being a woman myself. I admire what she was able to do but I don't have to like her, do I?
November 2, 2024
Drew Gilpin Faust is a historian and former president at Harvard. In Necessary Trouble, Dr. Faust tells a personal story of an upper middle class white girl’s mid century American South upbringing and her subsequent teenage years at Concord Academy and university years at Bryn Mawr College.
My upbringing is a generation and a world away from Faust. I’ve read history books about 1960s America, but I knew little about what it felt like growing up in it. The seismic change of the 1960s–the nuclear threat, the Civil Rights Movement, Second Wave Feminism, the Vietnam War, and counterculture, must have felt tumultuous to an idealistic teenage girl, perhaps more so than a Gen Zer feels today about our time.
I like the author’s clear eyed description as a historian, although the writing is a bit dry.
The mother-daughter conflict is very relatable.
The chapter I listened to twice is the tour she and her mixed race group of high school students had in Eastern Europe in 1963.
My upbringing is a generation and a world away from Faust. I’ve read history books about 1960s America, but I knew little about what it felt like growing up in it. The seismic change of the 1960s–the nuclear threat, the Civil Rights Movement, Second Wave Feminism, the Vietnam War, and counterculture, must have felt tumultuous to an idealistic teenage girl, perhaps more so than a Gen Zer feels today about our time.
I like the author’s clear eyed description as a historian, although the writing is a bit dry.
The mother-daughter conflict is very relatable.
The chapter I listened to twice is the tour she and her mixed race group of high school students had in Eastern Europe in 1963.
April 6, 2023
I was excited to read this book, as in college I took two semesters of Drew Faust's classes: History of the South I and II. She was an excellent professor and teacher and I knew this book would be well-written and interesting.
While this is categorized as a memoir, it feels more like a cross between memoir and history book (as evidenced by the pages of bibliographic notes). The first several chapters feel more like a history book, as Faust sets the context for what is to come, describing the Virginia of her own childhood and that Virginia of those who came before her. Once Faust enters boarding school and college, the stories get more personal and "memoir-ish" as she shares her experience living through the 50s and 60s. While of course this is Faust's own life that she recalls, and she can't help being who she is -- a rich, privileged, white girl/women -- you can't help but wonder at times if this -- this recollection of the fight for black civil rights -- is really her story to tell? Is this who I should be learning about this from? Maybe not exclusively, but it is still interesting to learn how and why one white women became so involved in the movement ... to get that particular perspective. And for me it was of course great to get insight into the childhood and college years of one of my favorite college teachers, and understand why she went into her chosen field.
NOTE: Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
While this is categorized as a memoir, it feels more like a cross between memoir and history book (as evidenced by the pages of bibliographic notes). The first several chapters feel more like a history book, as Faust sets the context for what is to come, describing the Virginia of her own childhood and that Virginia of those who came before her. Once Faust enters boarding school and college, the stories get more personal and "memoir-ish" as she shares her experience living through the 50s and 60s. While of course this is Faust's own life that she recalls, and she can't help being who she is -- a rich, privileged, white girl/women -- you can't help but wonder at times if this -- this recollection of the fight for black civil rights -- is really her story to tell? Is this who I should be learning about this from? Maybe not exclusively, but it is still interesting to learn how and why one white women became so involved in the movement ... to get that particular perspective. And for me it was of course great to get insight into the childhood and college years of one of my favorite college teachers, and understand why she went into her chosen field.
NOTE: Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
August 26, 2023
Format Read: Audiobook from NetGalley (available now)
Review: I enjoyed this audio, the author’s narration was engaging. I learned a lot about what it was like for a women to grow up in the Northeast, US in the 60’s.
Recommended For: Those who wants memoir set mostly in the 60’s by a women who was college educated and fought for civil rights.
Book-opoly #23
September 19, 2023
Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury I found to be one of the most revealing and insightful memoirs that it has been my pleasure to read for quite a while. Faust, a former President of Harvard University, shares with the reader her family history from both the paternal and maternal sides, as well as her growing consciousness from being a child in a conservative, white, privileged family in Virginia during the 1950s that, as a female, her life was expected to conform to one not altogether different from her mother's. That is, it's a white man's world and a woman's role was meant to be that of wife and mother, while her 3 brothers were raised to live independent lives in a world largely made to accommodate men like them. This is what Faust's mother had tried to explain to her. Faust could and would not subscribe to this societal expectation. As a young girl, she "could see how the lives of so many around me had been deformed and diminished by the constraints of custom and conformity, as well as by the unjust social hierarchies that structured our world. I wanted to understand that world, to see it fully without distortion or illusion."
In Necessary Trouble, Faust provides a unique portrait of the segregated South, and her experiences as a student and activist in both the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s. It is also a book that gives the reader a palpable - and at times, vicarious - feel of how the events and changes wrought in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s shaped our society and impacted on Faust's own life, culminating with her graduation from Bryn Mawr College in May 1968.
In Necessary Trouble, Faust provides a unique portrait of the segregated South, and her experiences as a student and activist in both the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s. It is also a book that gives the reader a palpable - and at times, vicarious - feel of how the events and changes wrought in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s shaped our society and impacted on Faust's own life, culminating with her graduation from Bryn Mawr College in May 1968.
September 14, 2023
The first section of the memoir, the authors youth, upbringing and disconnection from her parents were both interesting and relatable. My sister was born the same year and the similarities are striking.
From there on the book seemed like a student class Overview on boomer events. Impressively, the author played a part in many of the events. Forest Gump like. Her discovery American wrongs are pervasive with the boomer self discoveries. Somehow as human kind evolves over the millennia, the prior generation wasn’t smart enough to change smartly and the to make the world a better place. Boomers had the awareness to make societal changes
Got news for you, boomer. Prejudice and women’s issues were NOT restricted to the South. And definitely not just in America. In 1960, what place in the world would living be better?
Nothing new here, except the authors Gump like ride during the period.
At least she didn’t go to Woodstock 🎶
From there on the book seemed like a student class Overview on boomer events. Impressively, the author played a part in many of the events. Forest Gump like. Her discovery American wrongs are pervasive with the boomer self discoveries. Somehow as human kind evolves over the millennia, the prior generation wasn’t smart enough to change smartly and the to make the world a better place. Boomers had the awareness to make societal changes
Got news for you, boomer. Prejudice and women’s issues were NOT restricted to the South. And definitely not just in America. In 1960, what place in the world would living be better?
Nothing new here, except the authors Gump like ride during the period.
At least she didn’t go to Woodstock 🎶
December 19, 2023
A memoir by historian and first woman President of Harvard, who grew up in post WWII era and into the civil rights movement - sounded fascinating to me. But this book fell flat on several levels.
The beginning was interesting, as we learn about her family history and the death of her mother. From there we move through her life as she participated in the civil rights movement. We get a front row seat and follow her in her participation.
But we don’t get to know *her*. Much of this book read like a history book. There is very little self reflection and what feels like a whole lot of self grandiosity. After awhile it was off putting. We don’t learn how this shaped her. We don’t see a look-back to her conflicted relationship with her mother, who died very young, and learn how now, in her 70s, she has learned a broader perspective of their differences.
She seemed detached for much of the book. And her very choppy reading of the audiobook was distracting and cold. I mostly couldn’t wait for this to be over.
The beginning was interesting, as we learn about her family history and the death of her mother. From there we move through her life as she participated in the civil rights movement. We get a front row seat and follow her in her participation.
But we don’t get to know *her*. Much of this book read like a history book. There is very little self reflection and what feels like a whole lot of self grandiosity. After awhile it was off putting. We don’t learn how this shaped her. We don’t see a look-back to her conflicted relationship with her mother, who died very young, and learn how now, in her 70s, she has learned a broader perspective of their differences.
She seemed detached for much of the book. And her very choppy reading of the audiobook was distracting and cold. I mostly couldn’t wait for this to be over.
November 1, 2023
Faust is a bit younger than I am, but it still was a trip down memory lane, reading of familiar events. But there were differences. I wasn't of a privileged class nor from the south. And I was much older when I became aware of contradictions that she was aware of in grade school.
I found the beginning a more interesting read than the later half of the book. Maybe more personal. Maybe more apparent contradictions.
I found the beginning a more interesting read than the later half of the book. Maybe more personal. Maybe more apparent contradictions.
February 24, 2024
This is a beautifully written, thoughtful memoir of growing up in remarkable times. The author's account of her involvement in and commitment to the Civil Rights movement is compelling and written in a way that both acknowledges her own privilege and avoids lapsing into a tale of white saviorism--a difficult position to negotiate, but one that I think she does very well.
This book had a powerful emotional impact on me. So much of what Dr. Faust writes about resonates so strongly with recollections of my own childhood and youth: what it was like to be a girl in the 1950s, a difficult relationship with a disapproving mother, the Civil Rights Era, the Vietnam War. Although our backgrounds and experiences of those times were vastly different, I felt such a strong kinship to the author, the feeling of having gone through these things together.
This book had a powerful emotional impact on me. So much of what Dr. Faust writes about resonates so strongly with recollections of my own childhood and youth: what it was like to be a girl in the 1950s, a difficult relationship with a disapproving mother, the Civil Rights Era, the Vietnam War. Although our backgrounds and experiences of those times were vastly different, I felt such a strong kinship to the author, the feeling of having gone through these things together.
September 8, 2023
Excellent; highly, highly recommend.
August 16, 2023
I love a good memoir and there are some amazing examples out there. The best connect the reader into the heart and mind of the writer, and do so in a way that seems to be deeply investigated. The reader is a confidant and a close friend, or at least that is the feeling, and what I was hoping for with Necessary Trouble. Unfortunately, this is less a memoir and more of a historical account of events surrounding the author and how she engaged in those events.
The research is excellent and the writing is solid for a historian. This issue is that the reader is held at arm's length. The life is discussed, but not investigated with a majority of the text dedicated to the story of injustice and uprise in the 1960s without a deep personal connection. There are moments, pieces of writing from that time included, etc. However, what this piece is missing is heart. It relies heavily on the impact of the times examined and the divides perceived, making this an average read.
There is also an itch at the back of my brain, when so much of a book about a white wealthy Virginian teen tells the story of the civil rights movement with lots of “we” and “us.” While she did spend two summers actively participating in outreach engagement, there is a lack of her personal story that makes this teeter on the line of problematic… that line that moves from telling her story to telling a Black story that should be told by Black voices.
The research is excellent and the writing is solid for a historian. This issue is that the reader is held at arm's length. The life is discussed, but not investigated with a majority of the text dedicated to the story of injustice and uprise in the 1960s without a deep personal connection. There are moments, pieces of writing from that time included, etc. However, what this piece is missing is heart. It relies heavily on the impact of the times examined and the divides perceived, making this an average read.
There is also an itch at the back of my brain, when so much of a book about a white wealthy Virginian teen tells the story of the civil rights movement with lots of “we” and “us.” While she did spend two summers actively participating in outreach engagement, there is a lack of her personal story that makes this teeter on the line of problematic… that line that moves from telling her story to telling a Black story that should be told by Black voices.
February 20, 2023
Drew Faust’s coming of age reflections are situated within the story of the country’s own development, specifically seeking to break free from constraints on the roles of women and deeply rooted racial prejudice. A distinguished historian of the South, she contextualizes her own experience growing up in Virginia and being educated in the northeast within larger political and social currents. It is most certainly the tale of a very privileged young woman, which she readily and repeatedly acknowledges. The book will resonate with others of similar experience as a near-perfect crystallization of the epiphany of recognizing, and then feeling impelled to try to dismantle, the falsehoods on which one has been raised. To others, it may, unfortunately at times, come off as lacking self-awareness, and yet her accomplishment in relation to her originally prescribed role is remarkable. Faust is an artful, engaging, funny, and sharply intelligent writer. The book is as-advertised in terms of covering her early life, but I found myself wanting very much to read her analysis of what came next, particularly with respect to her experience as a woman in the academy and in becoming and serving as Harvard’s first woman president.
November 28, 2024
A good memoir shares the vulnerability of the writer. I'm thinking of Katharine Graham's Personal History.
There is very little of the personal in this book, which is a broad overview of the times in which Faust was educated. She did a lot of things, ran a lot of things, and was very self important. I found her lack of empathy for her mother's situation and condition repellent. She says at the end that privilege is a complicated heritage, but it doesn't seem to me that she adequately addresses that problem. Also, her delivery in the audiobook version is weirdly halting.
There is very little of the personal in this book, which is a broad overview of the times in which Faust was educated. She did a lot of things, ran a lot of things, and was very self important. I found her lack of empathy for her mother's situation and condition repellent. She says at the end that privilege is a complicated heritage, but it doesn't seem to me that she adequately addresses that problem. Also, her delivery in the audiobook version is weirdly halting.
December 19, 2023
A good memoir with clear voice of the author that delivers on its promise of delivering readers into an era that feels very distant from today’s, but also so many parallels. I didn’t know how active Faust was as a student in the issues of the time — traveling through communist countries, marching in the south, protesting the Vietnam War. I appreciated the look inside her thought process on weighing abstract school work versus more direct action. It will always blow my mind how much the world can change in the span of one life time — this memoir is a great reminder of that, and it perhaps not so subtly urges readers to not take change for granted but to be an active participant in change.
Couldn’t help but to get a signed copy of this at Harvard Book Store when I was back in September.
Couldn’t help but to get a signed copy of this at Harvard Book Store when I was back in September.
August 15, 2025
Read this at the behest of my grandmother and was largely bored—especially the first few chapters covering the author’s family lore which felt excessive. Some portions, especially Gilpin’s coverage of her time in the Eastern bloc and her time spent at Brynmawr during the anti-Vietnam war student movement felt more novel and made this worth finishing.
I am excited to discuss the book with my grandmother, who grew up in a small, conservative, Southern, evangelical community and is only a few years older than the author with a similar political trajectory. I’m interested to hear her feelings about the book and now primed with questions I hadn’t thought to specifically ask her (ex: where were you and what did the people around you say during the Selma to Montgomery marches?)
I am excited to discuss the book with my grandmother, who grew up in a small, conservative, Southern, evangelical community and is only a few years older than the author with a similar political trajectory. I’m interested to hear her feelings about the book and now primed with questions I hadn’t thought to specifically ask her (ex: where were you and what did the people around you say during the Selma to Montgomery marches?)
October 5, 2023
Guest review by my mother:
http://perfectretort.blogspot.com/?_s...
4 1/2 stars from me! Recommended.
http://perfectretort.blogspot.com/?_s...
4 1/2 stars from me! Recommended.
January 23, 2024
This is not so much a typical memoir - it is the author’s life as seen through the times in which she grew up. Her world view began when she was 9 and wrote a letter to President Eisenhower! She became
more political as she became aware of the inequalities around her. DGF was definitely in the right places at the right times. Although - she made it happen - it wasn’t an accident. Lots of hands on history told throughout this book and reminded me of those heady times during the mid to late 60’s.
more political as she became aware of the inequalities around her. DGF was definitely in the right places at the right times. Although - she made it happen - it wasn’t an accident. Lots of hands on history told throughout this book and reminded me of those heady times during the mid to late 60’s.
October 4, 2023
Amazon suggested this book and I read it because I was interested in the experience of someone who had grown up in Virginia who came of age during the Civil Rights struggle.
I found the parts about her life growing up in Front Royal in the 40s and 50s the most interesting and also her attempts to understand her family’s history and attitudes towards race. She also participated in the Civil Rights movement, and no matter how many times I read about the South during this era, it is still hard to realize just how violent the efforts were to maintain a segregated society.
But a lot of this book fell flat for me. The book begins to feel less personal as she gets into high school and college. I don’t regret reading it but I am also not sure that I would recommend it.
I found the parts about her life growing up in Front Royal in the 40s and 50s the most interesting and also her attempts to understand her family’s history and attitudes towards race. She also participated in the Civil Rights movement, and no matter how many times I read about the South during this era, it is still hard to realize just how violent the efforts were to maintain a segregated society.
But a lot of this book fell flat for me. The book begins to feel less personal as she gets into high school and college. I don’t regret reading it but I am also not sure that I would recommend it.
September 6, 2023
Saw her interviewed on Laurence O'Donnell and was intrigued. The fact that the cover shows her in front of Merion, my dorm at Bryn Mawr, added to my interest. This story of growing up in the South in the fifties reminded me a bit of Sally Mann's wonderful memoir, Hold Still, which she actually quotes from at one point. Literate and passionate. she chronicles her growing awareness of racism and her life-long commitment to living up to her principles. Despite this, it is not at all holier than thou and is quite readable. Fellow mawrtyrs will enjoy her occasional accounts of Bryn Mawr's commitment to individual responsibility and tendency to put academics before anything else.
February 1, 2024
I do not recommend the audiobook read by the author. I have learned to avoid books read by the author as they as are almost always a disappointment. I thought Dr. Faust, as a noted teacher, would be different but no, she read in a monotone. So I picked up the book book.
Truthfully this was a 2.5. While there were interesting chapters, if one is interested in the life of a privileged (rich) white girl in the 1960s, (my jaw fell open to learn that Bryn Mawr students were surrounded by all African-American maids and porters until 1980) key sections read more like a history book, not a memoir.
Truthfully this was a 2.5. While there were interesting chapters, if one is interested in the life of a privileged (rich) white girl in the 1960s, (my jaw fell open to learn that Bryn Mawr students were surrounded by all African-American maids and porters until 1980) key sections read more like a history book, not a memoir.
December 20, 2023
I was delighted to read about my alma mater Bryn Mawr as it was (ahem) when I was born. Faust brings her historian training to her memoir (getting copies of letters she sent from the presidential archives!). She had a remarkable and fascinating early life. I also enjoyed the context provided by discussing her grandparents' and parents' lives.
November 4, 2023
Fascinating memoir by the author of growing up in a privileged conservative southern family and her political awakening during the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s. I wish the book had traced her later development into an excellent historian and president of Harvard.
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