Wrapping Up Memoir Week

Whew! I did it! I'm pretty proud that I was able to post a review of a memoir every day last week. I don't think I'd ever posted so many days in a row before, and frankly I doubt I will again! Several reasons come to mind. First, I really enjoyed all the books I featured last week and I found it difficult coming up with unique adjectives to use for each one. In addition, some of the books had a similar tone or story. The thing I regret the most about last week, is that I don't think I was able to adequately express how very much I enjoyed Harry Bernstein's The Dream. I really just couldn't think of anything else to write at that point, and that is why I am a reader and not a writer.

I was curious to see what the reactions would be last week to the books I featured. I was not surprised that Can Any Mother Help Me? seemed to be the 'most popular' book, or at least the one that received the biggest response. The thing that made me wonder in the first place is that most of the books I featured were not happy books, instead most had some element of sadness or neglect. This is something that I think is common in memoirs. It just seems like most memoirs I read are, well, sad. When someone has a happy and healthy life, it doesn't seem as though they're necessarily driven to write about it. And frankly, it might not be that interesting to read, either.

I think in general as a reader, I tend to choose a greater percentage of books that aren't considered 'happy books'. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to read about negativity in the world, but I suppose I always have. I guess I could say that what I am reading about is life, and life doesn't always bring good things to people.

Thank you for supporting me during Memoir Week - it was fun! But now we will return to regularly scheduled programming.

*************

So, somehow I have wound up with 21 ears of corn. Any suggestions on what I could do with it in the next couple of days? I really want to try not to waste it.

The Dream

Memoir week concludes with Harry Bernstein's brilliant memoir, The Dream.

I'd picked this book up a few times at the store, but never took it home with me, until I read Lisa's fabulous review of Bernstein's other memoir, The Invisible Wall. I am not usually so stupid about books, but for some reason I got it into my head that The Invisible Wall was the follow-up to The Dream, so I ordered The Dream, only later discovering that it is Bernstein's second book, after The Invisible Wall. Silly me. But. I can tell you that whether or not you've read Bernstein's first book, The Dream stands alone as a fabulous memoir.

What is rather remarkable about Bernstein's books is that they exist at all. You see, he is now 98 years old and didn't begin writing until he was in his 90s. The Dream begins when Harry and his family set out for America from a small mill town in Britain. This has been his mother's dream for many years as she hopes for a better life for her children. Harry grew up in poverty with a sacrificing mother, and a father who drank away his wages and provided little to his children.

The Bersteins go to Chicago where they have family and have a few successful years. The great depression begins, and life changes again when part of the family moves to New York. Harry writes about his days as a schoolboy and later as a young working man. The move to New York winds up being fortuitous for Harry, as he meets and falls in love with Ruby, the love of his life, and is finally able to spend time writing. The pictures included in the book compliment the story perfectly and the love between Harry and Ruby is apparent in photos of them as young newlyweds and as an older couple.

Harry Bernstein is a gifted writer, he tells his story simply but with emotion and love. This was one of those books that I couldn't put down. I'm now reading Bernstein's The Invisible Wall , a memoir of his childhood and then I plan to read his third book, as well. I understand that he is working on fourth book and hope to enjoy it someday too.

****************

Well, this completes memoir week! I think I'll do a bit of a wrap-up next week, but for me I'm a little 'written out'.

This Lovely Life

Memoir week continues with Vicki Forman's newly released memoir This Lovely Life.







If I could only use one word to describe this book, that word would be STUNNING.

Vicki Forman became a person she never imagined she'd be when her 23 week gestation twins arrived prematurely. Despite her pleas to the doctors to let them go and not resuscitate them, California law dictated that this could not happen. The twins, Evan and Ellie, survived their birth, though Ellie passed away 4 days later. The months and years to follow find Forman on an unimaginable journey which she details in This Lovely Life.

Evan's story isn't that story we read about when the premature baby goes on to be 'just fine', a little behind in development but otherwise 'normal'. His story is the one in which he spends months in the NICU, with tiny bits of progress, but problems always cropping up. Things are never really 'just fine' for him. A feeding tube, blindess, seizures. These are but a few of the challenges facing Evan and the Forman family as they come to terms with the fact that Evan is considered profoundly disabled.

Forman writes with an unbelievable amount of honesty. The power of her words that articulate the fear, anger, and dismay she felt gave me a heaviness in my chest as I read and reread them. We experience the love Forman has for Evan, as she truly becomes his advocate and fights to achieve for him a life that he deserves. Forman also displays an incredible amount of hope. Throughout it all, she remains steadfast in her determination to celebrate what Evan can do, rather than what he cannot.

This Lovely Life is a sad book, but it is also full of love and hopefulness. It is the sort of book you think about when you are not reading it, that questions how to cope with medical professionals that often treat a patient as a series of problems to be fixed rather than as a human being, the sort of book that questions what 'life' really is.

Silvertown

Memoir week continues here, with Melanie McGrath's

Silvertown

An East End Family Memoir

Silvertown is the story of Melanie McGrath's grandparents, Jenny and Len Page. It's one of those extraordinary stories of everyday life in the East End of London around the turn of the century. These are people who struggled every day of their lives, and knew no different. People who lived in London but never visited the Tower of London or St Paul's Cathedral.

McGrath tells this story with candor, she is sympathetic but honest about her subjects. The lives her grandparents led are the same lives everyone else around them led. They both grew up in poor households, Jenny wishing to marry to get from under her father's roof and maintain her own household instead of her parent's. McGrath says this about Jenny's husband:

He was not one of her passions.

Nor was she one of his. Jenny and Len have two children who are removed to the countryside during the war. They stay there for six years during which time they have little contact with their parents. When they return, their father Len is glad to see them as he intends for them to work in his coffee shop. His bookish daughter has other ideas, of school and education. Her diagnosis of tuberculosis keeps her from school and the coffee shop much to her father's dismay - he sees nothing wrong with her that a little hard work wouldn't fix. This daughter happens to be the mother of the author and while we yearn to hear more about her, the author tells us that:

Hers is a different story, to be told another time.

I hope she writes that book.

Jenny suffers her husbands unfaithfulness, eventually winding up on her own, still working hard as she continues to do throughout her life. You know the rest.

This was a fascinating and absorbing read and contained one of the most horrific life experiences I've read in any book. The day Jenny turned 17, her mother took her out by herself, a rare occurrence. They did not go out for ice cream or new shoes. Jenny was delivered to a man who was paid to remove all of Jenny's teeth. There was no anesthesia or pain medication besides alcohol. It is an unbelievable story, and what was even more unbelievable was the reason why.

For those interested in what life was like, Silvertown is recommended.

A Memoir A Day....

Keeps the reading blues away? I don't know, but I've been reading a lot of memoirs lately, food and otherwise, and they are keeping me riveted. I have a few to review and so I think I am going to call this

Memoir Week

here at Books and Cooks. I am going to try to post each day, which may not work but I'll give it a go.

Today's featured memoir is

The Imposter's Daughter

by Laurie Sandell

I read an interview with Sandell in a magazine recently about her upcoming memoir and when it was offered for review by Hachette books I eagerly accepted. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it is a graphic book! I was not at all sure I was going to like this memoir, after all, I tried one graphic novel which didn't work for me at all, and another short one that did. Almost immediately after receiving The Imposter's Daughter, my computer was having issues and while I was waiting things to improve I began reading Sandell's book.

I was immediately drawn into her story. Sandell grew up in a home where there were many secrets surrounding her father. Where did he go on his long trips? Why did he get mail addressed to other people? Who did he communicate with on his ham radio? Did he really earn all the degrees and work at all the jobs he said he did? Sandell lived in a cycle in which she tried to understand and please a man who was unstable and dishonest. It's not until Sandell goes away to college and is a young woman that she realizes how her father has personally betrayed her and some of what he was involved in.

The heart of Sandell's book is what effect all this had on her. Not surprisingly, she's pretty damaged and makes some not-so-great choices. While her writing career takes off, she struggles in her relationships with men and with an addiction to sleeping pills. She avoids her father and is frustrated with the fact that her mother refuses to see her father as he really is.

I really enjoyed reading The Impostor's Daughter: A True Memoir . Despite my reluctance to read another graphic book this one has the right balance of narrative and dialogue to make it a satisfying read. Sandell's perseverance to seek the truth and take control of her life is quite moving and I enjoyed the unique way she told her story.

Many thanks to Hachette for this review copy.

Wife in the North

That sounds like it could be a book about me, doesn't it? I'll bet Judith O'Reilly, author of Wife in the North, is glad she's not a wife in MY north, here in the northernmost part of the US, complete with 8 months of winter. (I mean, the tomatoes are just now turning red, and we'll have a frost within a month.) In any case, Judith O'Reilly was not what you'd call completely thrilled when she and her husband decided to move to Northern England with their three small children. O'Reilly is a city girl, but she agreed to move on a trial basis to give her husband the opportunity to fulfill his dream of living in a small village.

There's a lot in this book that I and other mothers of young children can empathize with. Feeling like a single parent when your spouse is working long hours. Going from career woman to stay-at-home mommy and feeling as though you've lost your identity. Moving to a far-away place where it seems you will never fit in. Parenting your own children when it seems your own parents are beginning to need parenting. The most poignant parts of this book were when O'Reilly discussed the trouble her son had at school with bullying and the struggle she went through to help him. She stood up for him - and wrote about it publicly - at the risk of loosing friends which she did in some cases. The Vicar even asked her to tone it down a bit. I felt admiration for O'Reilly in the way she handled herself and how she helped make school a more welcoming place for her son.

Wife in the North is made of a series of what feel like diary entries and what are, in fact, blog entries. The style of writing took me a while to get used to since it did not flow in a traditional way and felt more 'choppy' than fluid. This prevented me from every really feeling immersed in this story. At times, I also questioned why O'Neill found herself in this position in the first place. Her husband, the full time wage earner in the family continues to work in London, so O'Neill finds herself alone quite a bit which seemed counterproductive. Overall, this was an entertaining book, and is probably of most interest to young mothers, rather than people who are looking to begin a new life in a new place.