Good as a Girl (a memoir)

At the age of eight, Ray Olderman vowed to his mother that he’d  be good as a girl. His mother badly wanted a girl and had just given birth to her third son. In this funny and moving story, Ray tells us how he carried the vow throughout his highly varied life and career. We follow his search for the “secret” of how to relate to women and understand the way they see the world–to please his mom. The story takes us on a rich ride through Ray’s experiences from the late 1940s until his mother’s death in the 1990s. Along the way, he forms many friendships with women who help him in his quest.

Good as a Girl offers a unique perspective on class and gender issues. As the years go by, Ray offers his own class-changing view of American social and cultural history. And because he was good friends with girls and women from an early age, he has a different story to tell about gender relations.

Paperback, 6 x 9, 196 pages