Not Breaking but Refusing the Mold: Julia Mattingly Debuts Her Memoir The Size of Dreaming

Oct 6

3 min read

Literary memoir looks back on a fiercely intellectual, high-control childhood and the hard-won process of claiming a life of her own

HEALDSBURG, Calif. — In her memoir The Size of Dreaming, author Julia Mattingly looks back on her extraordinary childhood, exploring what it means to grow up in a college community as the only child of brilliant but controlling parents where, amid towering expectations and little tolerance for deviation, she fought to claim an identity of her own.

Mattingly’s battle for independence and escape, eventually involving an early marriage to someone sympathetic to her plight yet himself tragically flawed, is communicated in a gripping narrative as compelling as the finest coming-of-age novels. It will speak to readers of Educated by Tara Westover and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls: an unflinching story of surviving a brilliant, controlling family and finding the courage to claim a life of one’s own.

The book’s long journey to publication has become part of Mattingly’s story as an author. She began writing about these experiences years ago, stepped away from the manuscript, and returned to it later in life with greater understanding of the events and relationships that shaped her.

Early readers have been unanimously enthusiastic, seized by a compelling narrative that reads like fiction but is entirely true. Almost all of them say that they could not put down the book, and many mention the author’s sense of humor and the extraordinary quality of the dialogue.

What Early Readers Are Saying

“This is the kind of memoir that finds its way into the canon of literature. … The dialog, quoted or re-imagined with authorial asides, is some of the best I’ve ever read.”

— Amazon Verified Purchase

“Brutally honest without pathos and skillfully recounted without sentimentality, this is the story of a young woman who refuses to avoid the truth, climbing out of victimhood to claim her right to her own psychological and emotional life.”

— Amazon Verified Purchase

“A compelling coming of age story that kept me up at night needing to know the ending. Julia is a fascinating character who writes of her dysfunctional childhood with a lot of wit and no self pity.”

— Amazon Verified Purchase

Mattingly reflects on the story behind the book:

“Long ago I ceased to be angry at my husband for abandoning me. What I feel now is gratitude for his standing up to my parents, grief at his death, and sorrow at the waste of his talent. … As for why I survived my childhood, that remains a mystery. I wonder if I should attribute it to my having a sense of humor, humor being a powerful corrective to self-pity.”— Julia Mattingly

About Julia Mattingly

Julia Mattingly built a decades-long international banking career, living and working in London, Singapore and Hong Kong, yet the story of her childhood stayed with her, and she eventually returned to writing. Today, she lives in Healdsburg, California, where she continues to write both prose and poetry.

Publishing note: The Size of Dreaming was self-published by Julia Mattingly, with author services provided by Clipston Publishing.

The Size of Dreaming is available now on Amazon and through participating booksellers.