When Melissa Anderson (no longer desiring to be called Melissa Sue Anderson as her Little House fans know her) published her book, The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House, reactions from fans were mixed. Some were ecstatic, eagerly looking forward to hearing “Mary’s” side of the story. Others not so much — with Melissa Gilbert’s Prairie Tale out last year, and news of Alison Arngrim’s upcoming Confessions of a Prairie Bitch already making its rounds in the Little House world, some raised an eyebrow at yet another autobiography from a Little House actress. My own reaction? I’m not sure I really had one.
But, as I do with any new publication having to do with Little House, I ordered it immediately upon its release… but happened to read others’ reviews before I had a chance to pick up the book myself. And those reviews — from diehard Little House fans, mind you, not from the general public — weren’t great, to be quite honest. Complaints of lengthy episode summaries and “no juicy tidbits” and overall disappoinment left me apathetic at best about digging in for myself, especially with a whole stack of really good books I was eager to devour in my “to-read” pile.
But at last, I sighed and picked up the book to see for myself just what I thought of it. So here’s my opinion — the good and the bad.
First, the good:
I personally really liked Melissa Gilbert’s Prairie Tale, but the language used and the behaviors described in the book were too much for some fans, and other fans protested that there wasn’t nearly enough about Little House in the book to suit them. Those people will LOVE The Way I See It. This autobiography is nearly as prim and proper as Mary Ingalls herself. It’s profanity-free and mentions of Hollywood corruption (and always about others, not Melissa herself) are few and far between. And if Melissa Gilbert didn’t have enough about Little House to suit you, Melissa Anderson is here to serve! Nearly the entire book is nothing but Little House — there are a few paragraphs here and there of other projects Melissa was involved in, but the book is definitely primarily about her life on Little House, as the subtitle indicates.
Now the bad — with still a bit of good mixed in:
There were two aspects of this book I personally did not like. The first is the way she occasionally describes incidents from real life written as a script. I can see, however, that as an actress from such an early age, she may look back at memories and see them in her mind as a script, whereas I, an avid reader from an early age, view memories in eloquent prose. It certainly was a unique approach, however, and novelty is always a pleasant added touch.
The second negative about this book was, as others had already pointed out, the episode play-by-plays. In some instances, it made sense — for example, to refresh the reader’s memory about a particular episode because she was then going to expound on something that occurred behind-the-scenes, or her feelings about some aspect of the episode. However, there were other episodes that I got frustrated after reading such descriptive paraphrases, only to reach the end of the episode description and that was it. No trivia. No additional information that anyone who watched the show on tv didn’t already know. No thoughts or feelings about the filming of that episode. Those left me wondering, “WHY did she just tell me all of this? What was its purpose? For anyone who has already watched it, we already know what happened — and for anyone who hasn’t, wouldn’t it be more enjoyable for them just to watch the episode than hear someone’s line by line retelling of it?”
That said, I was more pleased with the book than I expected to be. The “no juicy tidbits” wasn’t quite true — if trash talk on the other actors is what you’re looking for, this isn’t the place to find it. But for me, there were a lot of behind-the-scenes-of-Little-House juicy tidbits. Information about where certain episodes were filmed, about how special effects were performed, about how the filming and editing were done was plentiful and I found it quite interesting. I only wish there’d been even more of that, with fewer episode guides.
Overall, I think the average Little House fan will find it a pleasant and enjoyable read. Have you read the book? Do you agree? Let us know what you thought about it in the comments. (But no spoilers please!)
I did read it, and enjoyed it, moreso than Prairie Tale — I just found Anderson’s writing more pleasing than Gilbert’s, I suppose. But I do agree that the episode recaps were a bit much, leaving something to be desired in the backstory department.
I already have Prairie Bitch on hold at the library (actually had to request it, and luckily they ordered it). Arngrim is so funny and sharp, I can’t wait to dig into that.
I, too, just finished ‘The Way I See It’ by Melissa Anderson and found it to be very read-able, engaging, and a book that could truly be given to a pre-teen to read about the ‘show business’ world through a child’s eyes (Mary’s to be exact!). Melissa was just here in Denver last week, reading from and autographing her book – I drove the 1.5 hours to see her – and she was the most pleasant and quietly entertaining ‘celebrity’ that I have met in a while. What you read in the book, is the real person in life. Her life and narrative was quite the contrast to Melissa Gilbert’s, but I think that was partly the intent and point – they came from different backgrounds, worked in parallel worlds, and matured into adults on totally different paths.
I asked her if there was any connection to all of the recent memoirs and the ‘Little House’ musical and Dean Butler’s new LIW DVD all happening this past year. Melissa said that when she was first approached to write this book, she shied away from the idea – her husband is the screen writer of the family – but then she realized that she DID have something to say and a particular point-of-view from her experiences on the the ‘Little House’ set. She never has felt the need to attend the cast reunions or the homesites, but I invited her to do so and she was open to the idea, I think. I especially liked the scripting of her real-life experiences – it was clever and tie-in directly with her topic and point of the book. Melissa invited several people to read with her from a couple of those episodic scripts in the book – to the delight of everyone in the room.
In all, I enjoyed reading this second Melissa book better than the first because it focused on the TV years and did not ‘trash talk’ every detail as celebrities seem to need to do these days. Both Melissas have grown into great mothers (Mas) and writers (Lauras) – they just arrived by very different paths.
I didn’t particularly enjoy it because of the long episode summaries with no reflection or interesting information. I also did not like the fact that she made several negative comments about Melissa Gilbert. Not because I think MG is perfect, but because they felt petty and immature. Parts of the book were enjoyable, but mostly it didn’t hold my attention.
I bought all three of the books during Laurapolooza. What to say?
The book reads more as a companion piece to a DVD rather than an autobiography. Even then, I thought it would have been more interesting to describe how the special effects were created or more information on the behind the scenes without giving out to much dirt instead of rehashing so much of the episode. Or to tell more about her life. In the end, I do have to say that I think I would get along with Anderson much better than Gilbert or Argrim. And lastly, I cannot stress enough how much I disagree with her and Melissa Gilbert that it was brilliant on Micheal Landon’s part to deviate from the books. I’m sure that’s a shock to everyone here.