LSSL 5385: Book 4

Annie on My Mind

By Nancy Garden

Garden, N. (1982). Annie on My Mind. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.

            Liza Winthrop is seventeen year old student at Foster Academy, who has always worked hard at school and plans to attend MIT.  She lives with her parents and younger brother, Chad, in a nice part of Brooklyn.  Liza is the student council president and with that job comes a lot of responsibility.  One day while visiting a museum to gain inspiration for an assignment she meets a girl named Annie.  She is immediately drawn to her, and they have a fun time together.  They exchange numbers, and Liza is unsure if Annie will reach out or if she’ll have the courage to do it first.  Annie is from a different background.  She attends public school and lives with her parents and grandmother in a tiny apartment.  Annie loves plants and is a phenomenal singer, and hopes to attend college back in California where she is originally from.  She has always had a hard time fitting in since she moved to New York, and Liza is the first person she feels that is real.

            They quickly develop a close friendship that evolves into love.  They spend all of their time together visiting museums, gardens, and going for long walks.  During Thanksgiving break they experience their first kiss other.  Liza can’t stop thinking of her and anxiously awaits the next time they’ll see each other, and realizes that the always has Annie on her mind.  Before Annie, Liza had never truly realized her attraction for girls and although she never thought of herself as gay she knows that she is in love.  During a student council meeting Liza hears that her teacher needs someone to feed her cats over spring break and she offers to do it.  The girls spend most of their time at the house during break, and even keep food there so that they don’t have to leave until their parents expect their home for dinner.  On the last day in the house they are comfortable enough to go upstairs and to be intimate with one another.  While they are upstairs though they hear someone banging on the door and demanding to be let in.  Liza hastily gets dressed, goes downstairs, opens the door, and it’s her friend Sally and Ms. Baxter from school on the other side of the door. 

Through a series of events the administrator at Foster Academy realizes that Liza and the two teachers she was cat sitting for are gay.  Liza is expelled from school, her parents are notified, and the teachers are dismissed until the trustees hearing.  At the hearing, it will also be determined what will happen to Liza, and if anything will go on her permanent record and be shared with the colleges she wishes to attend.  Liza is allowed to return to school and finish her senior year, but the teachers were forced to retire.  During this time, Liza and Annie’s relationship has shifted and suffered and they are barely talking to one another.  Liza leaves to attend MIT and Annie goes to college in California.  The story ends with Liza finally reaching out to Annie and making plans to see each other during Christmas break.

            Garden wrote Annie on My Mind during the eighties when not to many books were written with a main character falling in love with a member of the same sex.  Although, times had changed drastically since the fifties when she was growing up as a gay teenager and not too many people outwardly spoke about being gay.  She has written several books similar to this book where her main characters who are women fall in love with another and have to deal with rumors and accusations from those around them. 

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