“What an enchanting memoir. You don’t have to be a fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show—or even know what it is—to be captivated by this funny, sad, inspiring journey of a clear-sighted woman for whom a fictional character is a guide for navigating life’s very real challenges. For MTM fans, of course, Julie Marie Wade’s book is a not-to-be-missed treat.”—Clifford Thompson, author of What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues and Twin of Blackness: A Memoir
“An ekphrasis, an homage, a recuperation of a retrospectively subversive feminist icon, and a deft cultural critique of a 1970’s classic television show, Julie Marie Wade’s The Mary Years is also a delightful and incredibly moving memoir read entirely through the lens of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The Mary Years chronicles Wade’s coming of age into independence, into feminism, into coming out as a lesbian and forming an artistic identity as a writer—while overcoming incredible sociocultural and familial pressures to live a life in compliance with conservative political, religious, and heteronormative values. Dazzlingly innovative and shape-shiftingly fluid in form, this memoir is in many ways a love letter to female role models, mentors, friends, and lovers—particularly the ones that light up pathways outside the obligatory confines of limiting and restrictive futures, the ones that illuminate alternate ways of making sense of one’s life. Funny, smart, and occasionally heartbreaking, this wonderful memoir has the fierce torque and iconic joy of a bright homemade tam‑o‑shanter spiraling up into a cold, winter sky.”
—Lee Ann Roripaugh, author of tsunami vs. the fukushima 50
“Who knew Our Lady of the Tam Toss, ‘70s icon Mary Richards, would provide the perfect bridge from a strict ‘50s-values Catholic upbringing for a queer ‘90s teen? In this unique memoir strung from lyric moments like beads on a rosary, Wade writes her own tender credo—part filmography, part hagiography, part coming-of-age coming-out story—of what it means to be a modern woman. To do so, she looks backward to look forward, a runner running not from but to, who prays Thank God for re-runs.”
—Heidi Czerwiec, author of Fluid States
“What an enchanting memoir. You don’t have to be a fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show—or even know what it is—to be captivated by this funny, sad, inspiring journey of a clear-sighted woman for whom a fictional character is a guide for navigating life’s very real challenges. For MTM fans, of course, Julie Marie Wade’s book is a not-to-be-missed treat.”
—Clifford Thompson, author of What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues and Twin of Blackness: A Memoir
“When life doesn’t give you the models you need, find them in fiction. ‘We become ourselves through other people after all,’ writes Julie Marie Wade at the beginning and end of her nonfiction novella The Mary Years. Wade’s tam-throwing Dante is Mary Richards of The Mary Tyler Moore Show—a scripted character who leads the author out of the many deadlier scripts written for her at birth. Rich in comedic timing and nimbly cinematic, The Mary Years’ infectious charm never obscures the real pathos of working through homophobia, estrangement, and growing out of as well as into. Reading these pages made me want to make JMW my own MTM.”
—Susanne Paola Antonetta, author of The Terrible Unlikelihood of Our Being Here
“[The Mary Years] celebrates the unexpected parallels between a young lesbian living in a restrictive home setting and the triumphs and tribulations of Mary Tyler Moore and her beloved sitcom character Mary Richards. Wade tells this coming of age/coming out story with grace and insight. . . . The book's sensational middle section alone, ‘Lamonts Might Have Been My WJM,’ makes The Mary Years a fabulous gift.”
—Gregg Shapiro in The Bay Area Reporter
"In The Mary Years, Julie Marie Wade, a writing professor and award-winning essayist and poet uses the object of her lifelong fascination—the fictional Mary Richards of the 1970s sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show—as a lens through which to view her own life, from the only child growing up with conservative parents in the 1990s to queer adult. A particular treat for MTM fans."
—Clifford Thomson in The Wall Street Journal
