She Got Up Off the Couch - by Haven Kimmel (Paperback)

About the Book

Kimmel's powerful storytelling is in evidence in this riveting continuation of Zippy's childhood--a story of risk-taking, motherly love, and small-town heroism.

Book Synopsis

The # 1 New York Times bestseller A Girl Named Zippy was a rare and welcome treat: a memoir of a happy childhood. Spunky, strong-willed, and too smart for her own good, Zippy Jarvis brought readers delight and joy. In She Got Up Off the Couch, Haven Kimmel invites us to rejoin the quirky and hilarious Jarvis family saga, shining the spotlight now on her remarkable mother, Delonda.

Zippy is growing up and struggling with both her hair and her distaste for shoes. But this memoir strikes a deeper and more emotional chord, as now Kimmel shines the spotlight on her remarkable mother, Delonda. Courageous and steadfast, Delonda finally realized that she could change her life, and she got up off the funky couch in the den, bought a beat-up flower power VW bug (and then learned to drive it), and went back to school, which gave her the chance to gain both financial independence and, at long last, self-respect.

A true pleasure for old fans and new ones alike, She Got Up Off the Couch is a gorgeous encapsulation of an innocent time when a child didn't understand that her mother was depressed or felt stifled, but just noted on her way out the door that Delonda was a fixture in the living room. Kimmel captures the seminal moments of her mother's burgeoning empowerment with the full strength of her distinctive, deft storytelling, and with the overflowing sense of humor that made A Girl Named Zippy a favorite of readers everywhere.

Review Quotes

"She Got Up Off the Couch returns to the small-town life that made Kimmel's childhood memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, a bestseller. But this less-sunny sequel looks more tellingly at things that were glossed over in the first book. Zippy's father, for example, is hardly the hero she worshiped as a young girl. And the dirt and disorder the tomboy gloried in has a darker reason: After decades married to a gambler, Delonda had given up. Kimmel never indulges in bitterness, but by the end a reader will be in no doubt about the Kilimanjaro of obstacles her mother scaled on her way off that couch."
-- The Christian Science Monitor

"It is Kimmel's mother's journey from beaten-down housewife to university student and schoolteacher, told through Zippy's irresistible voice, that forms the backbone of She Got Up Off the Couch. Kimmel deftly chronicles a child's awakening to a world outside tiny Mooreland..."
-- The Miami Herald

About the Author

Haven Kimmel is the author of The Used World, She Got Up Off the Couch, Something Rising (Light and Swift), The Solace of Leaving Early, and A Girl Named Zippy. She studied English and creative writing at Ball State University and North Carolina State University and attended seminary at the Earlham School of Religion. She lives in Durham, N.C.