Memories Float Down From the Sky: A Memoir

by Mary Cross

Many people with interesting personal lives don’t take up the challenge of a private memoir. Mary Cross has done so, and she has accomplished is unusually well—and in her own style. The memories of this girl, floating down like sketches in an animated flip book, are quintessentially Mary. Early in the progression, the reader can’t help but get She’s a visual artist; she thinks in pictures and makes pictures out of words. So much is observed in each sketch (historically, socially, culturally) and with a distinct flavor that over and over says, “Aha! That’s Mary.” Here she is on one of her first childhood writing “Cave Man Play. Cave man discovers fire, eats cooked meat, smiles. ‘Strange but good.’ What a line! I wrote this for a fourth-grade play. Dialogue doesn’t come easily in cave man plays.” For anyone who knows something of the “front story” of Mary’s life—the life with Teddy in Princeton, Nantucket, New York; and as a photographer, author, world-traveler; saloniste par excellence—the memoir’s account of the ordinary, often sad, “back story” of the un-famous and un-adored Mary is strangely haunting and beautiful (“Strange is good”). The reader can see and feel for the little one who early on wanted out, wanted more, and kept moving toward it. Bravo to Mary. She did it her own way. Here’s her story. About the Author: Mary Cross was a photographer who authored photojournalistic books including "Behind the Great Wall" (1979), "Egypt" (1991), " Sahara to the Sea" (1995), " Spirits of the Earth" (2001), and "Sacred Turkish Mosques & Tombs" (2013). She was a trustee of the American University of Cairo for twenty years. She was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, a member of the Boards of Directors of Network 20/20, the Princeton Arts Council, the American School of Tangier and the Near East Foundation.

362 pages, Unknown Binding