Series:

Southwestern Writers Collection Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University

4 total works

Cover of Just As We Were

Just As We Were

by Prudence Mackintosh

Published 1 January 1996
Writing with both a wry sense of humor and an insider's compassion, Prudence Mackintosh offers us a fascinating look into the world of privileged, educated, well-married, well-connected, and mostly wealthy white Texas women.

Cover of Retreads

Retreads

by Prudence Mackintosh

Published 6 August 1985

Retreads tells the middle of the story begun in Thundering Sneakers and concluded in Sneaking Out. In this collection of essays, Prudence Mackintosh follows her sons through the "tween" years between little boyhood and adolescence. Vividly portraying the chaos that descends on a house full of active children, she also records the many first times and last times that give poignancy to the middle years of motherhood.

Cover of Sneaking out

Sneaking out

by Prudence Mackintosh

Published 1 November 2002
From the endless battles of sibling rivalry to the endless worries about getting indifferent students intoNand then graduated fromNcollege, raising boys is the adventure of a lifetime for any mother. Prudence Mackintosh has not only survived the adventure but has also written about it with her signature wit and style. Her essays about life with sons Jack, Drew, and William have entertained the readers of Texas Monthly and other prominent magazines for nearly three decades, offering solace to similarly beleaguered parents and a knowing chuckle to everyone who enjoys watching the real-life sitcom of a fundamentally happy, intact family. Sneaking Out completes the story that Mackintosh began in her earlier books Thundering Sneakers and Retreads. In this collection of new and previously published essays, she recounts life with her adolescent sons as they race headlong to first jobs, first driverOs licenses, first girlfriends, and first flights away from the family nest. She also follows them into the college years, when both parents and sons have to find a new balance in holding on and letting go.
Along the way, she offers wise and witty reflections on being a woman at midlife, supporting her sons through the beginning of their adult lives and her parents through the end of theirs.

Cover of Thundering Sneakers

Thundering Sneakers begins the story of the Mackintosh boys. In these essays, Prudence Mackintosh describes the delights and terrors of living with little boys who are determined to be boys, despite the carefully nonsexist childrearing practices of the 1970s. With telling vignettes of boyish disasters that drive her to despair, as well as the rare quiet moments of hugs and confidences that make it all worthwhile, she perfectly captures the early years when a young mother still looks for "the real mother" to come and bail her out.