HER LAST DEATH, Please Lay to Rest Mommy Dearest Memoirs

Susanna Sonnenberg's memoir, HER LAST DEATH, is hopefully, the end all to end all memoirs of family dysfunction (as if there haven't been enough already.)   HER LAST DEATH is Sonnenberg's airing her dirty laundry of abuse, perversion & emblazoned sexual promiscuity.  Sonnenberg (b. 65) is a published journalist in "O," "Oprah" & incredulously, "Parenting."  Daphne, Susanna's mother, makes Joan Crawford look like Mother Theresa.  Daphne is a drugged out nymphomaniac and pathological liar whose perverse, inappropriate behavior molded her daughter into a lewd, misguided Lolita.  Susanna's encouraged promiscuity is the only mother/daughter bonding they share.  Be forewarned, do not read this disturbing, degenerative & dysfunctional psycholagical family melodrama.  Sonnenberg may have been published in Oprah's mag. but her bio would not have aired on her show.  The censors would not allow it.  She is a clever, readable writer with the skill to draw in her reader.  Therein lies her treachery.  Her memoir begins as a happily married mother of 2 when she receives a call telling her mother was in an accident, & on her deathbed.  She calls her sister saying she won't be flying to their mother's bedside.  She chooses to retain the barrier to prevent further toxicity and damage inflicted by  their mother.  What caused this irreconcilable rift and how did she survive?   It's not worth being mired in the slime to find out.  Should you read past the opening you'll be shocked, appalled & likely hooked on the ultimate violations of mother/daughter relationships.  Please, let HER LAST DEATH kill the Mommy Dearest genre.

MARY COIN-the Photo/Woman that Defined the Great Depression

Marissa Silver's historic & enlightening novel unveils the life of the woman whose gaze is fraught full of bewilderment has personified the era of the Great Depression.  Mary Coin is the woman in the photo whose children's heads are seen leaning into their mother as Mary's pensive gaze depicts her striving to  solve how to maintain food & shelter for her children during this deperate time of poverty.  It is deeply  significant to learn of the life Mary Coin whose face has come to represent so many migrant workers also struggling to provide for their families.  This is a story of destitution, of brutal treatment & hard labor so many endured during the Depression.  It also depicts the societal strata that perpetuated an impoverished work force.  Vera Drake is the photographer whose life is told entwined with the woman from her iconic image.  The novel delves with how history is revealed through photos.  A photo is a relic that captures the death of a precise moment.  The rare photo has the ability to enshrine an image in time that represents life concisely & meaningfully.  MARY COIN reminds us life is forever changing, creating new perceptions and questions.

Mindy Kaling - Hang with Her NOT Her Book

IS EVERYONE HANGING WITHOUT ME? (AND OTHER CONCERNS) is Mindy Kaling's likable non-commendable succinct account of her life experiences and other minor details.  I'm happy for Mindy, she contends "…my parents are perfect and so am I."  Her childhood was basically innocuous.  She was content being on the outside looking in and for the most part, inside watching comedy on TV.  She sums her preadolescence by saying "it all added up to a happy, memorable time."  Her college years at Dartmouth kept the good times rolling and close friendships were formed.  After graduating, she & her college buddies became roommates in a cramped Brooklyn apartment to pursue their dreams; or take any job that paid the rent.  Her path to a successful career in comedy writing & acting was not particularly compelling.  I'm getting the sense that comics memoirs are intended as tributes to their favorite comedians & comic bits perhaps in hopes of reciprocated admiration.  Mindy did share some amusing observations.  I agree, "So much can be excused if you're just funny enough."   Mindy's book, IS EVERYONE HANGING... is not funny enough to recommend.  However, I would like her to be my friend which is highly unlikely.  My chances are now further diminished when she reads my review (as if.)  But, who needs a friend that might punch them in the face & break their nose.

Maeve Binchy's A WEEK in WINTER, Dull Reading Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall

Perhaps it is sacrosanct for me to malign the writing of beloved Irish author, Maeve Binchy, on her last novel completed shortly before her death ('12).   Nevertheless, I found by A WEEK in WINTER a tedious read.  I read only 100 pages of this novel but these were 100 pages of tedium.  Her novel is outdated & trite.  The story is set in Stoneybridge, a small Irish village, mid-20th C.  Stoneybridge has dim prospects for the future & very astringent moral conventions.  Carnal relations outside of wedlock is so disgraceful, young women become forsaken by their families.  Chicky & Orly are 2 such women whose promiscuous behaviors ("it isn't fitting,") send them from their homes onto diverging paths that    intwine decades later.   Chicky follows her lover to America.  She returns home to Ireland under fraudulent accounts.  Back inside the local parish, Chicky "wondered if there really was a God up there watching and listening.  It didn't seem very likely."  I questioned why Binchy's writing has been so highly honored.  She was eulogized as "Ireland's best loved & most recognizable writer."  Ms. Binchy had been awarded both the British & Irish Book Awards for Lifetime Achievement.  Even the omnipotent Oprah chose Binchy's TARA ROAD as one of her Book Club Selections.  Perhaps these should entice me to finish A WEEK in WINTER or attempt another of her novels.  However, this will not  happen in winter, spring, summer or fall.  Instead, I highly recommend Alice McDermott's CHARMING BILLY or works by Irish writer Colum McCann.

Dirty Daddy - Bob Saget's Funny & Poignant Memoir

As I read this laugh out loud funny autobiography which is stupefyingly awash with grief,  I questioned whether there was a ghostwriter somewhere between the sheets.  Bob had no qualms hanging out his dirty laundry.  He also unabashedly wears his love for his family & friends,  especially his 3 daughters, on his sleeves.  In fact, there is no attempt at restraint in sharing his life & lessons learned.  Nor is there any filtering to all the thoughts racing through his eccentric & razor sharp mind.  Saget's book jumps loudly off the pages; as if he's doing standup directed specifically at you.  Told with zany humor is Bob's iconic career in entertainment made all the more incredulous knowing the many tragedies within his family.  Bob embraces his Danny Tanner character for the steadfast friendships that stemmed from the family friendly Full House sitcom.  Reading Dirty Daddy reveals Bob's true potty mouth & comedic genius.  From Bob's CHRONICLES of a FAMILY MAN TURNED FILTHY COMEDIAN you connect with a person who embraces life and "how humor helped {him} survive."  For the gifted, gutsy, irreverent comics who are able to make us laugh, thank you for making our lives brighter & more bearable.  Bob ends his book addressing whether or not he used a ghostwriter.   "The answer is yes.  It was Ernest Hemingway."  Bob, thanks for the memories.    

BOY, SNOW, BIRD a Tale as Old as Time-A MUST READ

BOY, SNOW, BIRD by Helen Oyeyemi, winner of a Somersest Maugham Award ('10) is young girl's coming of age story that ingeniously appropriates the Snow White fable to disclose the evil spell hatred & racism casts.   Boy, Arturo's wife, is mother to Bird and stepmother to Snow.  Snow is the beautiful, enchanting & fair skinned daughter from Arturo Whitman's 1st marriage. Upon the birth of Bird, Boy banishes Snow from their home to be raised far away.  Boy is now the wicked stepmother despite having escaped from a torturous upbringing by her abusive father, the rat catcher.  Bird is a mystical free spirit who communes with spiders & is unable to find her reflection in mirrors.  Bird, a child of white parents in a predominantly white town, is dark skinned.  This is an elegant & disturbing coming of age story of Bird.  It is written partly in fable form which sheds harsh light on racism & prejudice that holds blacks inferior to whites.  Mirror on the wall, who is fairest of them all?  Oyeyemi's poetic writing & story telling call to mind, Hurston, Angelou, Ellison & Twain.  Still, this is a unique and powerful novel with imagery that reflect & confront social issues that persist today. Oyeyemi's Snow White story is also a Beauty & the Beast tale with hope for a time when people "will not be judged by the color their skin but by the content of their character." (King, Jr.)  

The Uncommon Reader- a Novella by A. Bennett is a Bibliophile's Dream

Alan Bennett, Tony Award winning playwright (The History Boys) proves that size doesn't matter in this succinct & delightful read about the vast pleasures (& few limitations) of books.  One of Britain's leading dramatists writes about Queen Elizabeth's late in life, love for reading.   Indeed, reading is the great equalizer.  You don't have to be a Royal to reap the rewards of a book.  Perhaps, it is the commoner who is richer with the freedom of leisure not allocated to a Queen with her many obligatory (& laborious) public duties.  It is quite by chance & ettiquette, that Her Royal Highness (HRH) stumbles into the bookmobile and requests a book recommended by its custodian.   The epiphanies realized by the Queen are quite profound and entertaining bringing us into the realm of life in the Palace.  Perhaps, the most pertinent observation by the Queen is that reading puts people "on common ground."  Bennett in turn, puts the reader into the life of HRH.  The Queen's curiosity & philosophies evolve with her looming compulsion to read.  She considers "fate is something to which we are all subject," and notes empathy comes from reading "with the ability to enter other's lives."  Reading provides both pleasure & a deeper understanding of the world.  For all that reading can provide, HRH decrees "reading is not doing."  Quite so your Highness.