The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter

April 6, 2009
Robinson, a former contributing editor to Ladies’ Home Journal
, wryly narrates this memoir about growing up with a stern navy father who abruptly takes up breeding the then little-known gerbil in the late 1960s. Though her mother equates the creatures with rats, and her father must keep his behavior hushed in his military circles, his hobby soon becomes an obsession that he believes will not only make him an income but allow him to retire. Robinson grew up as a fish out of water navy brat in the 1970s with a strong-willed mother and younger siblings—including her sister Gail who died of cystic fibrosis at age four. But her father is the true focus; he accidentally discovers that gerbils have epileptic seizures, a discovery that leads him to become the world’s largest supplier of gerbils bred for research. Robinson intersperses her compelling narrative with accounts of gerbil mayhem, managing to milk a great deal of humor and pathos out of the rodent that eventually became a common children’s pet.

April 15, 2009
Journalist Robinson cheerfully recalls growing up with a closeted gerbil-breeder.

The author's father was a captain in the Navy, a war veteran and an academy professor. He also raised gerbils, as a hedge against future income needs and because he believed, as lab animals, they contributed to the common good. Because Navy officials would have frowned upon this strange sideline business, he had to keep it a secret until retirement, when his initial stash of eight"tiny, caffeinated kangaroos" reached a rotating population of nearly 9,000. Robinson presents a colorful cast of characters: her dad the"Gerbil Czar," her acid-tongued mother, the standard-issue feckless younger brother, a cute but mischievous little sister and a too-smart-for-his-own-good youngest brother. It's a scenario that could have been lifted from a 1960s sitcom, but Robinson invests the narrative with pathos, good-natured moments of absurdity and plenty of keen humor. The author also turns lyrical at times, such as when her mother bought Chinese golden pheasants, who were"pleasing to have around, like plumes of sunlight beneath the hedges." As the captain's gerbil empire evolved, so did the family. Her mother became more caustic, the author matured into a young woman and her brother rebelled against another gerbil-related task, prompting a chase around the farmhouse by his father as the family watched from the porch, lemonade in hand. Whether it's Dad sawing wood in his Speedo—the author's mother cautioned that he looked"like a French Canadian tourist"—or the many words of barbed wisdom from Mom, these recollections are entertaining and instructive.

Daffy yet sweet and affecting.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2009
Robinsonstraditional military-brat upbringingis upended by her fathers sudden andinexplicable fascination with gerbils. As she details the familys dedication to this new project, her mothers grudging tolerance, and the machinations required to keepthe gerbils secret from the navy (which would frown upon such kitschy weirdness), Robinson makes herfamily seemordinary in spite of this one bit of strangeness. And her father was no rodent dilettante, as evident in her chronicling ofhis years of research into using gerbils in lab experiments and his carefulbusiness plan. What keeps thissurprising memoirfrom becoming a Lucille Ball/Henry Fonda parody is, sadly, the sudden death of Robinsonsyounger sister from cystic fibrosis, a disease her father hopes can be cured throughscientific inquiry. Suddenly gerbil farming isnt so silly after all. Robinson writes with humor and honesty, creatingacharming story, a reminder of how all the love and care in the world may not be enough, and a moving tributeto a father who, nonetheless, never stopped trying.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)