Lecture, Maisie Houghton, Pitch Uncertain, CANCELED

This event has been canceled due to the flooding on the first floor.

Pitch Uncertain

Touching and incisive, Pitch Uncertain is an account of Maisie Houghton’s struggle to find her own voice as the middle child of two parents whose marriage and lives she slowly decoded as she came of age in the 1950s. Growing up in the gentle ambiance of Cambridge and regularly visiting relatives in the socially polished reaches of greater New York, Ms. Houghton and her two sisters had the makings of an ideal childhood. But their parents were an enigma to their children, particularly their middle child.

One of five sisters, Sybil Jay was the “gentle doe” of a distinguished New York family that had morphed over the twentieth century into a resilient matriarchy. Charming and independent, Ms. Houghton’s father, Frankie Kinnicutt, was the handsome, fun-loving son of stolid New Yorkers whose emotional reserve and formal residences formed a stiff contrast to the liveliness of the Jay household. As a parent, Sybil was an anchor for the family: diligent, caring and attentive, while Frankie was independent, playful, curious and remote—more sail than anchor.

Pitch Uncertain portrays an era and genteel culture as much as it deciphers a marriage. It is also the intimate recollection of a girl—a middle child—struggling to find both her place in the world and her own voice in the supposed quiet of the 1950s.

Boston Athenæum member Maisie Houghton was born in New York City, grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1962. With her husband, she has lived in Corning, New York for over forty years. Pitch Uncertain is her first book.

To Reserve: There is no fee for this event, which is open to the public. Reservations are required but cannot be accepted until Wednesday, January 12. Please call the Athenæum’s events reservation line, (617) 720-7600.