Lori Duff Writes

Trailer Trashed: My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobilityby Hollis Gillespie

Hollis Gillespie is not like the other kids. The origins of which are clear from her description of her family growing up – her mother was a nuclear engineer (a bomb maker, specifically) and her father was a chronically unemployed alcoholic trailer salesman. Both had a ‘fend for yourself’ parenting style and unstable lifestyles resulting in a lot of moving around and a few sojourns in the trailers that her Dad was trying to sell. The result is Hollis and her siblings.

This book is a collection of related autobiographical essays, not really a narrative. Much like my book, Mismatched Shoes and Upside Down Pizza (like how I worked that plug in there?) it is a series of descriptions of random things that happened in Hollis’ life. Unlike Mismatched Shoes, however, it is decidedly non-PG.

The subtitle of the book is “My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility,” a status that is thwarted by her ‘addiction’ to buying travel trailers and storing them in her in-town (ITP) Atlanta yard. Plus, it doesn’t seem to me that she is making any effort whatsoever. She likes her oddball life, loves her oddball friends, and finds herself in situations most of us couldn’t dream up. And good for her. She’d likely never fit in middle class suburbia. Or she’d be that one people smiled at and nodded at a lot.

I like quirky people, despite my personal uber conservative choices. People who you’d describe as “nuts, but the harmless kind of crazy, and really entertaining.” Normal is boring. Hollis Gillespie is NOT boring. Neither is this book. I admire the fact that she owns her unconventional life, that she is fiercely loyal to her even more off-center friends, and that she shares it with rest of us in a way that will make you do a few out loud tee-hees.

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Lori Duff

Lori B. Duff is an award-winning author who practices law on the side.  Her latest book, “If You Did What I Asked in the First Place” was awarded the Gold Medal for humor in the Foreword INDIES awards in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter at @LoriBDuff and on Facebook. For more blogs written by Lori, click here. For more information about Lori in general, click here. If you want Lori to do your writing for you, click here. If you want Lori to help you market your book, click here.