Atlantic City Girl

At the age of eighty-eight and disabled for eight years, Joyce Greenberg Lott wheeled her wheelchair to her desk to write her memoir. She believed in self-reflection, that an important part of living was to examine one's life, but she also believed that it was difficult for an individual to recall "the truth." The author of two poetry chapbooks, a book about teaching writing, and numerous published poems and articles, Joyce, nevertheless, attempted to tell her truth in chapters ranging from her birth in Atlantic City, New Jersey to her life now in Long Beach, California in an apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Born Jewish seventeen months before the start of World War 11 and kicked out of Wellesley College for marrying at eighteen, Joyce explores life in a more difficult time for women before Second Wave Feminism. She discusses her early patriarchal marriage, ending almost twenty-five years and three children later, in divorce, her lovers and her search to find her own identity. Joyce includes her poetry at the end of chapters, in order to give another perspective to her story. She ends her memoir thinking of death, wishing she could reflect on that the way she has reflected on her life.