Review: 'Cinderland: A Memoir,' by Amy Jo Burns

Writer Amy Jo Burns grew up in a small town in western Pennsylvania she calls "Mercury." Mercury was, as she writes, "a place that had become its own needy planet." It was a place Burns longed to escape from, even at a young age, and a place that left an indelible mark on Burns not only for what she did there, but for what she didn't do.

When Burns was in fifth grade, her piano teacher — a popular man around town and a well-liked sixth-grade teacher — was accused and eventually convicted of molesting his young female piano students. Burns denied that Howard Lotte had ever touched her, but she said this to avoid being ostracized by the town — as many of the accusers were.

"Cinderland" is an exploration of that murky period of childhood and young adulthood, and of how Burns' experience was ultimately colored by not revealing the abuse to her parents, the police and the town. When her best friend, one of the accusers, moved away because of the backlash, Burns was convinced that her lie was justified in order to protect herself and her family from the intense pressure of the small town.

In her book, Burns shifts between her fifth-grade year, when Lotte was accused, and her high school years, carefully painting a picture of a Rust Belt town in decline complete with bored teenagers, unemployed parents, abandoned houses and the heady glow of Friday night lights. She also shifts between the first person singular and the plural, creating one voice for the girls who were Lotte's students and their response to the expectations of a small town.

The theme of "Cinderland" appears to be one of impermanence: of a town, of Burns' relationships with friends and boyfriends, and of trust. Most of the time, Burns successfully portrays that to the readers, but sometimes that story gets lost among her meticulous detail of the emotions of adolescent life.

Still, her prose is fluid and her reflections on life in a small town have a certain poetry to them. The story of Lotte is strong, but not as strong as Burns' stories about exploring an abandoned house with a friend, or the public humiliation of finding her boyfriend with another girl. "Cinderland" is an examination of Burns' feelings of guilt at hiding the truth, but it's also an expository reflection on how a place shapes our own sense of self.

Meganne Fabrega is a freelance writer and a member of the National Book Critics Circle.