Outside Passage: A Memoir of an Alaskan Childhood Paperback – Import, 15 February 2011
Julia Scully . Univ of Alaska Pr . English
When Julia Scully was seven years old, her father committed suicide, and she and her sister were sent to an orphanage. Two years later, emotionally damaged by the isolation and brutality of the orphanage, the girls followed their mother to the near-wilderness of the gold-mining territory north of Nome, Alaska, where she had leased a roadhouse in the tiny settlement of Taylor. Julia had no idea what to expect when she arrived, but to her surprise, she found a healing power in the stark beauty of the vast tundra. Later, she reveled in the boisterous, chaotic boomtown atmosphere that prevailed when thousands of American troops descended on Nome at the outbreak of World War II. Outside Passage is a lyrical and affecting memoir of those years, simultaneously an emotional account of a young girl’s first steps into adulthood and a unique portrait of a vanished frontier life.
Categories: Region & Countries
About the Author
Julia Scully's memoir of her childhood, "Outside Passage," was published in 1998 by Random House and re-published in 2011 by the University of Alaska Press. The book received wide critical acclaim including a full page lead review in the Sunday New York Times Book Review as well as being named one of the top ten biographies of the year by Amazon.com. It tells the story of Scully's difficult childhood in orphanages and in frontier Alaska where she worked in her mother's roadhouse. In their review of "Outside Passage," the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Beautifully written, wisely understated...More than a story of an Alaskan childhood, Outside Passage is about something far more difficult to describe--memory and the delicate skein it weaves within us and across the separations of life." Julia Scully was the Editor of Modern Photography Magazine for 20 years during which time she wrote countless articles as well as a monthly column. After retiring from Modern Photography, Scully wrote and produced a syndicated weekly feature, "Picture This," for Associated Press Newsfeatures. Later she authored a bi-monthly column for the publication, Photography in New York. In 1974 she was a co-discoverer (with Peter Miller) of the work of the now-famous photographer, Mike Disfarmer. Referring to this discovery in the New York Times Sunday Book Review (May 10, 1998), Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote: "Anyone who loves photography owes a debt to Julia Scully." Scully is currently working on a book about her career in photographic publishing during the period which saw an incredible metamorphosis from photography as an amateur pastime or commercial venture into a full-blown (and fully-accepted) art form. Photo credits: author photo (with hat) by Ellen Land-Weber; (without hat) by Alice Scully.
