The book also suffers from occasional clichés. Even if the boys in the neighborhood really were looking at native women in National Geographic, it’s a story told so often it should have been bypassed. The one good thing about Internet porn is that quaint story will fall out of the collective unconscious by another generation.
Also, the anecdotes are so smart, clever, and quirky that I began to wonder if they were all really true. She tells a story about her mother working at the unemployment office making ten dollars more than the unemployed “but they only had to come in one day a week instead of five,” which is a gag I have heard comedian Bob Newhart tell. There is also the time she thought she was being clever and wrote a dirty poem in her school anthology. She explains the first letter of every other word spelled out an expletive-filled phrase, but she was off one word.
Buffalo Gal is like a friend or family member reminiscing about the good times with not much in the way of strife or conflict even with her having to deal with her parents divorce. It’s a nice, pleasant, angst-free read.
An excerpt of the memoir about “God’s Frozen People” can be read at Pedersen’s website.
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