In the Rhododendrons: A Memoir with Appearances by Virginia Woolf

An expatriate poet, Heather Chase travels nostalgically between the UK and US, and looks to London, especially Kew Gardens, a national treasure captured in the book’s title. Her poetic streak and her down-to-earth self brag a little about her teenage misdeeds. With notable publications to her name, Chase focuses mostly on herself for 250 pages, which is what a memoir should be. But not exclusively, always clutching two hands over the years, Virginia Woolf, her heroine and wished-for alter ego, keeps appearing, likewise her mother, whom she treasures and reviles. Sound cozy? Not so, because the three share a fearful experience, all three were raped as young teenagers.

Chase recalls the emptiness and continuing teenage difficulties as her life takes one turn after another, all recorded in beautiful, lyrical style. Teaching college now in America, her students surely relish her specialness, her extensive reading repertoire, a serious approach to learning, along with unexpected quirkiness, creating memorable courses.
Any reader familiar with twentieth-century England’s marvelous novelists will be in their element on pages that intersperse history and literature, Dr. Barnado and Dolly mixture candy, sensational and serene elements in a country reluctant to let go of a sometimes romantic past.