About the Author

Margaret Sartor is a writer and photographer who has been widely published and exhibited. She teaches at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

About the Book

Margaret Sartor, a fiercely determined girl from rural Louisiana, who is equal parts “Holden Caulfield and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” (Atlanta Journal Constitution), presents a poignant portrait of American life during the 1970s. Crafted from diaries, notebooks, and letters, this deeply personal yet universally appealing story moves with ease between the seemingly trivial concerns of hairstyles and boys to the more profound questions of faith and identity. By turns funny and poignant, heartbreaking and profound, Miss American Pie tackles all of the decade’s issues—desegregation, drugs, the sexual revolution, the rise of feminism, and the spread of charismatic evangelical Christianity—with humor, frankness, and unexpected insight.