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Lily Iona MacKenzie
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The Ripening: A Canadian Girl Grows Up Paperback – October 9, 2021

by Lily Iona MacKenzie (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 16 ratings
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Sexual awakening can be messy business.

Tillie Bishop never knew her father, and when her mother abandons her, Tillie quickly becomes streetwise. Even in Calgary, forces of the coming 1960s—a decade of rebellion, discovery, and upheaval—are already at work within her. As a Canadian Girl in Training, she’s tried to follow their Christian guidelines, but she prefers to make up her own. She smokes cigarettes in the church bathroom during the group’s meetings and plays kissing games afterward with neighborhood boys. Barely a teenager, glamour becomes her new guiding star, and she fantasizes about a future of dating men and having sex.

At seventeen, during a stay in Toronto, she becomes a band groupie and throws herself into the “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” scene—just what she she’s been looking for. Then, seeking more adventure, she moves to San Francisco, drawn to its psychedelic night life, leading to a deeper downward spiral. However, Tillie’s grit and ability to face life’s challenges are inspiring, the seeds for later discovering her artist self.

Tillie takes readers on a wild ride through a period of riotous personal and cultural change. Join her if you dare!

——

Tillie Bishop eventually becomes a visual artist and changes her name to Tillie Bloom. Follow the older Tillie in Freefall: A Divine Comedy. She’ll take you into an art world you’ll never forget.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    267 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    October 9, 2021
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 0.67 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1683132343
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1683132349
  7. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pen-L Publishing (October 9, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 267 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1683132343
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1683132349
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.67 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

About the author

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Lily Iona MacKenzie

Lily Iona MacKenzie

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I'm devoted to following the intricacies of language and where it takes me. I'm ardent about words and what they evoke in our minds and imaginations, the worlds they create. And I'm constantly learning, a student of the writer's craft, eager to open myself each day to the endless possibilities this calling presents. No wonder I love to write!

Writing requires exertion, the ability not to give in when we've received yet another rejection. Some people call this perseverance. But is that what it takes to keep writing in the face of adversity, rejection, and lack of recognition? The word sounds so duty bound, so driven. To me, a better word is discipline because at the root is disciple, though there are many lovely variations on this word that I actually prefer: student, follower, learner, devotee.

About me? A Canadian by birth, a high school dropout, and a mother at 17, in my early years, I supported myself as a stock girl in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a long distance operator for the former Alberta Government Telephones, and as a secretary (Bechtel Corp sponsored me into the States). I also was a cocktail waitress at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, briefly broke into the male-dominated world of the docks as a longshoreman (I was the first woman to work on the SF docks and almost got my legs broken), founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County, and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in Creative writing and one in the Humanities).

I have published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 170 American and Canadian venues. Pen-L Publishing released my novels Fling! (2015) and Freefall: A Divine Comedy (2019). Curva Peligrosa, another novel, was published in September 2017 by Regal House Publishing. My poetry collection All This was published in 2011 and another, California Dreaming, was released on June 27, 2023, and my poetry chapbook No More Kings came out in 2020. Shanti Arts Press is publishing my hybrid memoir Dreaming Myself into Old Age: One Woman's Search for Meaning on September 19, 2023. I currently teach creative writing at the University of San Franciso's Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning. I also blog at https://lilyionamackenzie.com.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
16 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Sumner Wilson
5.0 out of 5 stars Tillie takes a trip.
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2021
The Ripening
By Lily McKenzie.
Canada.
Tillie Bishop grows up like no girl ever has before. To say she had it rough is telling a big fib.
Wow. I think she must have lived her own mother’s life as a young girl and teen with all her mistakes thrown in as well as her own.
The Ripening is about a female who grows up in the 1940s & 50s in times when boys were kings and girls little more than servants.
Her unwed mother marries a man who owns a farm, and off they go to live in the wilds of farm life. I thought at that time that this would be good and Till would grow up in a different world where things were better, where food was plentiful, even though her stepfather made her work it didn’t seem that she was working for her food at all. All the girl ever wanted was for someone to care for her. This is a common thread that runs throughout the book. I suppose we all want that, but females have a much harder time trying to find the love they yearn for.
Tillie manages to live through the ages between eight and eleven. Afterwards things sort of go berserk. She gets into more entanglements and youthful scrapes than any female I’ve ever met but having known her in her later life in the book: Freefall, where she appeared as Tillie Bloom rather than Tillie Bishop, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
She attends meetings of a Christian group, Canadian Girls in Training. No, this isn’t a home for wayward girls but of what should provide them as a model for those who want to grow up doing right in life. This turns out to be little more than a place for girls to go to get out of the house and into mischief.
Tillie has as many wild escapades and narrow escapes as the grown-up Tillie in Freefall.
Later as a teen she travels off to San Francisco to see what messes she can get into there.
I can’t accurately review this book since to do so would be to reveal parts of her wildlife such as dropping acid and getting drunk on every occasion, and, of course, there is much sex as well. To do so would ruin the tale for you, and I’ll be damned if I’ll do that. Anyway, I’m sure YA girls will love to live with Tillie as she fumbles her way through her youth.
Buy yourself a copy of The Ripening, read it, and enjoy the adventures on your own.
2 people found this helpful
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Naomi Raven
4.0 out of 5 stars Growing
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2021
Verified Purchase
Lily Iona Mackenzie has led us through the growth of Tillie. A young girl influenced by the good and the bad seen around her. I found this book to be both heart wrenching and passionate. You just have to feel for Tillie!
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N. N. Light
5.0 out of 5 stars A gritty literary coming-of-age novel
Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2021
Free spirit Tillie experiments with all that life throws at her in a quest for self-identity and self-expression in the 1960s. Tillie Bishop has always been a free spirit but her journey to find herself takes her from being abandoned by her mother to surviving by any means necessary to experience what life is all about. It is a long and twisted road with many pitfalls. From Calgary to Toronto to San Francisco, Tillie embraces the sixties revolution and freedom of expression. With each adventure comes soaring highs and debilitating lows but for Tillie, it’s shaping her into the woman she’ll become. Like an orange, she needs time to ripen to her full potential. Take an unforgettable trip to the past with Tillie and you just might find a piece of yourself you’ve been missing.

The Ripening is a gritty literary coming-of-age novel set in the 1960s. Tillie is a fascinating woman who lives by her own set of beliefs and views. I first met her in the novel, Freefall, and I instantly connected with her. When I think of a sixties young woman, Tillie’s personality immediately comes to mind. The Ripening explores a part of society not normally talked about. The descriptive narration reeled me in and didn’t let go until the very end. Through this book, I truly felt like I went back in time and lived the life of Tillie. The Ripening is a coming-of-age story but the subject matter is very adult. If sexual situations are a trigger for you, you might want to skip certain sections of this book. At the heart of this story is a young woman who learns what life is all about and how life can be what you make it. If you’re looking for a wild coming-of-age story, pick up The Ripening. Lily Iona MacKenzie transports readers to the sixties in a stunning tour de force. Highly recommend!

Disclaimer: I received a copy from the author in the hopes I'd review it. My thoughts are completely my own.

My Rating: 5 stars
2 people found this helpful
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GVWM
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Read from MacKenzie!
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2022
I’ve finished The Ripening by Lily Iona MacKenzie.Wow! The author has presented Tilly, her young protagonist, with insight, humor and pathos. Rarely have I read a scene of a young child playing, with such an accurate attention to the child’s developmental stage, as this author’s opening line describing three-year-old Tilly imitating a cat in her backyard. This keen understanding of the psychological burgeoning of a girl-child ripening into the succulent and vulnerable peach of a teenager—vivacious, passionate, eager and fearless—makes The Ripening a ride much like those found at the fairgrounds of the annual Calgary Roundup.

From 1943 through 1958, against backdrops of a rustic Canadian farm, the rodeo stop of Calgary, and the complex cities of Toronto and San Francisco, California, Tilly works through family insecurities and growing pains, with an eager attraction to the ever-widening world around her. She presents as an aspiring explorer and a fearless survivor. As a parent and grandparent, I often found myself whispering, “Don’t do it.” But Tilly would go forward and through some very tricky situations.

MacKenzie introduces us to young Tilly with humor and a deft hand. Having read about this engaging child, I wanted to re-read MacKenzie’s Freefall: A Divine Comedy which continues the saga of Tilly, now an adult approaching sixty. I encourage readers to venture forth, with Tilly, into her world, and ask, What would I do? For me, it was an excursion, from the safety of my living room, into many edgy scenarios, situations I avoided growing up, but Tilly jumps into with both feet. I thank the author for showing me what I missed and what others chose to do. Good literature makes a better world through better understanding.
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