REVIEW: One of the Boys: Surviving Dartmouth, Family, and the Wilderness of Men by Lynn Lobban

Reviewed by Diane Gottlieb

Coming of age as a young woman during the turbulent 1960’s was challenging. While change was certainly on the horizon, traditional gender roles in families and the wider society were still the rule rather than the exception. Women were discouraged from following their dreams — unless those dreams were of keeping house and home. Many of us are currently reeling with the recent assaults on women’s rights, but we still can recognize,  as the old Virginia Slims jingle proclaimed, “We’ve come a long way baby!”

Our progress can be traced to the feminist movements of the day and is often credited to a few courageous, outspoken women who blazed the trail. Yet, much gratitude is owed to less visible individuals, who created their own possibilities and stepped into the few opportunities available. One such opportunity was presented to a tiny group of seven woman in 1968: they were to be part of an experimental year at Dartmouth, which had until then closed its doors to women.

Lynn Lobban was one of those young women, and she tells her story of breaking through many cultural and personal barriers in her feisty and moving memoir One of the Boys: Surviving Dartmouth, Family, and the Wilderness of Men (Palmetto Publishers 2024).

“When I arrived at Dartmouth College in the fall of 1968, as one of its first women,” Lobban writes, “I was determined to prove I was equal to any man. … I sought to gain power on the Ivy League campus where testosterone flowed from New Hampshire trees.” Yet, for all her determination, her feisty spirit, and unsinkable spunk, she was not immune to societal messaging — and youth: “I was a hormonal teenage girl. While battling the status quo, I longed for the magic kiss and Prince Charming to make me whole. I screamed for equality while making Dartmouth my personal stomping ground for getting male attention, attention I feared as much as craved.”

Lobban’s confusion did not stop her from making news during her first month on campus by pledging to the Chi Phi Heorot fraternity. She writes about the experience with humor, “acceptance into Heorot will not be like moving up from Brownie to Girl Scout,” and she recounts the details the pledging process, the humiliation of being called a “shitbird,” the beer-chugging and stogie smoking, an obstacle course, and a strange ceremony involving a casket and a naked fraternity brother. She is, finally, accepted into the frat and becomes the first and only female “brother.”

The casket ceremony, however, triggers a disturbing childhood memory — she flashes back to an incident when she and her sister found her mother drunk and lying in an unplugged basement freezer wearing a negligée, slurring her words, and telling them to leave her alone. It is a powerful image, one of many Lobban later shares, of childhood abuse and neglect.

To an outsider, it might have seemed Lobban lived a charmed life. Her father was a well-respected physician, her mother, a homemaker who dressed to the hilt. They lived in a lovely home in the suburbs of New Jersey, complete with household help. Yet, while the family may have been swimming in privilege, Lobban’s parents were drowning in drink. Her mom, bitter about the limits placed on her as a woman, took to the bottle and was most often cold and cruel to Lobban. Her father had seemed the warmer and more encouraging parent, yet his abuse took a horrible form. It wasn’t until late adulthood that Lobban was able to recall — and then begin to deal with — the trauma of his sexual abuse.

This is all heartbreaking and sobering stuff, yet Lobban’s voice is generous, open, and often very funny. She shares her great challenges with equal compassion, and she shares her joys too. Lobban writes about finding great freedom in dance, in acting, in being on stage. Unlike her mother, she would let nothing stop her from following her dreams. She worked hard, studied her craft, and landed a role on Broadway in the Tony-nominated musical Quilters. She also earned an MFA in playwriting and began to write her own plays. The structure of her memoir reflects this background, as the sections of the book have titles such as “Sneak Preview.” “Incitement,” and “Climax.” Within the sections, are sub-headings, such as “Zoom Shot,” “Call Sheet,” and “Trailer,”  an interesting craft choice that adds an unique element to the text.

One of the Boys has much to offer many. For those who enjoy a good period piece, Lobban offers a powerful and insightful look at a changing country and, specifically, of feminism in action in the late 1960s and beyond. For those who like a page-turning read, One of the Boys fits the bill. Mostly, though, Lobban’s story is one of triumph over pain. “Healing from early trauma is a lifetime’s work,” she writes. Now in her 70s, Lobban knows there is still work to be done. But she has clearly come home to herself. She no longer lives to find her place in the wilderness of men: “Happy to be one of the girls, I hear the strength in higer-pitches and know the power there. The bravest warrior is not the one who muscles through, but the one who shares her wounded heart.” Lobban generously and courageously shares her wounded heart with her readers. Through her story, she offers others hope—and a wonderful example of healing.