Kline, Christina Baker 1964- (Christina Baker)

PERSONAL:

Born 1964; daughter of William J. (a history professor) and Christina (an English professor) Baker.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Small Change: Shorter and Longer Stories, 1993.

Sweet Water (novel), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1993.

(With mother, Christina Looper Baker) The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk about Living Feminism, Bantam (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor) Child of Mine: Writers Talk about Their First Year of Motherhood, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1997.

Desire Lines (novel), William Morrow & Co. (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor) Room to Grow: Twenty-two Writers Encounter the Pleasures and Paradoxes of Raising Young Children, St. Martin's Griffin (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor, with Allison Gilbert) Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents, Seal Press (Emeryville, CA), 2006.

The Way Life Should Be (novel), William Morrow & Co. (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Christina Baker Kline is the author of short stories and novels. Her nonfiction includes The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk about Living Feminism, a collection of first-person narratives she wrote with her mother, Christina Looper Baker.

Kline's novel Sweet Water revolves around the decision of twenty-five-year-old artist Cassandra Simon to move from New York City to Sweetwater, Tennessee. Although since age three she had been raised by her widowed father in Boston, she now finds herself compelled to live with the maternal grandmother she has never known on the sixty-acre farm that her grandfather bequeathed to Cassie. In chapters that alternate between the first-person narration of Cassie and her Grandmother Constance, the two women try to deal with each other and the past, in particular the shattering death of Cassie's mother in a car accident two decades earlier.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer praised Sweet Water for its suspenseful plot, "often beautiful and always lucid" text, and Kline's abilities as she "perfectly renders each woman's voice." The critic concluded that Kline has produced a "powerful, immensely readable tale." Andrea Higbie, writing for the New York Times Book Review, faulted Sweet Water for its flat characters and not living up to its promise; she praised the novel, however, for its "intriguing structure … and some clear, evocative writing." In School Library Journal, Carolyn E. Gecan predicted: "Young adults who like a little romance and mystery mixed together will enjoy this gentle story."

The Conversation Begins is a collection of first-person narratives based on interviews with twenty-three significant second-wave feminists and their daughters. Some sixty women who have made public contributions to the women's movement were invited to participate in this project, though some declined. Included in the published collection are pieces by Eleanor Smeal, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Alix Kates Shulman, Tillie Olsen, Patsy Mink, Barbara Seaman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Naomi Wolf, Paula Gunn Allen, and Joy Harjo, among others.

In The Conversation Begins, Kline and Baker focus on how feminism has affected the family and been passed from one generation to the next. They discover that there has been somewhat of a backlash by daughters who too keenly suffered their mothers' absences—physical, mental, and emotional. While Beverly A. Miller complained in Library Journal that "the results are curiously bland," Leora Tanenbaum, writing in Women's Review of Books, found that the personal stories "alone make fascinating reading." "Their conversations reveal as much about the mother-daughter dynamic as they do about feminism," remarked Donna Seaman in Booklist. "There is a voyeuristic pleasure to reading about their private lives," Tanenbaum added. Though feeling that the book offers only partial insight into feminism's impact and inadequate delving into the future of feminism, a Kirkus Reviews critic wrote: "As a collection of discrete stories of a social movement and of the eternal bond of mother and child, this is an impressive book."

Kline is editor, with Allison Gilbert, of Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents, a collection of twenty interviews. The contributions come from ordinary people, as well as celebrities like Ehrenreich, Ice-T, Rosanne Cash, and Yogi Berra. In some cases, the deaths were premature, such as was the case of the deaths of singer Shelby Lynne's parents. Her father shot her mother and then killed himself when Lynne was just a teen. Many were the result of tragedies like the Holocaust, 9/11, or the crash of TWA Flight 800. Library Journal reviewer Elizabeth Brinkley described Always Too Soon as being an "often heart-wrenching collection of voices."

Kline's novel The Way Life Should Be is narrated by Angela Russo, who hopes to leave Manhattan to live a simpler life. She makes an online connection with a man whose screen name is "MaineCatch," and distracted by the possibilities, Angela becomes neglectful at her job as a museum event planner, which leads to her dismissal. Angela is now free to head to the Maine coast and Mount Desert Island, where she finds Rich the sailing instructor to be something of a disappointment, living in a subdivision condo, not in the seaside cottage she had imagined. Friendless, Angela nevertheless begins to rebuild her life, renewing her passion for cooking (recipes are included), meeting people, and eventually finding another chance at love. A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that Kline "has a perfect sense of character and timing."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 1, 1996, Donna Seaman, review of The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk about Living Feminism, p. 1328; August, 2007, Katherine Boyle, review of The Way Life Should Be, p. 41.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 1996, review of The Conversation Begins, p. 413; June 15, 2007, review of The Way Life Should Be.

Library Journal, April 15, 1996, Beverly A. Miller, review of The Conversation Begins, p. 109; November 1, 2006, Elizabeth Brinkley, review of Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents, p. 97; August 1, 2007, Laurie A. Cavanrugh, review of The Way Life Should Be, p. 70.

Ms., November-December, 1996, review of The Conversation Begins, pp. 80-81.

New York Times Book Review, September 5, 1993, Andrea Higbie, review of Sweet Water, p. 12.

Publishers Weekly, April 12, 1993, review of Sweet Water, p. 45; October 9, 2006, review of Always Too Soon, p. 49; June 4, 2007, review of The Way Life Should Be, p. 31.

School Library Journal, November, 1993, Carolyn E. Gecan, review of Sweet Water, p. 150.

Women's Review of Books, September, 1996, Leora Tanenbaum, review of The Conversation Begins, pp. 7-8.