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Published on 12/01/1997 All articles from this issue

Author went with the flow to write autobiography

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By Clyde Noel

Special to the Town Crier

Book Review

In the spring of 1987, Mary Wright Shaw sat in the Foothill College parking lot coaxing herself to enroll in a writing course. She sat for nearly an hour thinking, "I can't write, so why bother?"

A lot of promising writers go through these same thoughts, but Shaw eventually went to the registration office and enrolled in a creative writing class. Shaw was in her 60s when she enrolled. Her only previous writing experience was an award-winning essay she wrote in the seventh grade on abstaining from alcohol.

Her Foothill College experience led her into writing a personal journal of her memoirs that accumulated over the years and were recently published as "Go With the River."

The book title, "Go With the River," comes from an expression Shaw's mother used as a form of advice as she grew up in Pennsylvania. It means to go with the flow.

Writing from an inner spirit with a capacity to love, the author relates stories of coping when circumstances seemed insurmountable.

"I discovered my journal entries triggered the flow of my writing as I wrote from my gut, my heart and from my soul," Shaw wrote.

Writing an autobiography requires references to a lifetime of memories and emotions. Shaw starts with her childhood in Pennsylvania, and continues through her nurse's training at Massachusetts General Hospital in the late 1930s. Her husband died of a heart attack and left her with five children.

Shaw taught human sexuality. Her last chapter, "The Eternal Longing," is a classic story of today's paradoxical twist: explicit sex in the movies, but a wayward kiss in the workplace can result in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

Shaw's autobiography, which offers wisdom gained only through the many experiences of her lifetime, is a good read.

The Palo Alto resident currently tutors children in community programs.

"Go With the River" is published by Gander Publishing Inc., in Palo Alto, and is available at Heintzelman's Bookstore, 205 State St., in Los Altos.