An expansive history, detailing the life of a Midwestern family, that’s best in small doses.
A family scrapbook that paints a vivid image of life in an Illinois town over four generations, using diary entries, photos and letters.
In 2013, when Eisen discovered a diary belonging to her great-grandmother Ellensohn, she set out on a quest to piece together her family’s history. Her debut provides readers with the fruits of her labor, spanning nearly a century of stories, correspondence and memories. Her retrospective of life in Cicero, Illinois, featuring dozens of old photographs, is impressively comprehensive. There are yellowed portraits of great-uncles and great-aunts from the late 1800s, grocery lists dating back to 1927, and ancient recipes for cream puffs that call for ingredients such as ammonia and lard. The author acts largely as a biographer, allowing her family history to unfold mostly without comment—but during particularly amusing stories, she can’t resist adding her two cents: “I warned you about the name recycling,” Eisen jokes, after she introduces yet another family member named Mary. “In fact, my alternate title to this book is, ‘So Many Marys, So Many Johns.’ ” When Eisen can’t provide specific information, she dramatizes events, filling in gaps with imagined diary entries based on stories she’d been told by others. However, the book is extensive enough without these fictionalized sections. Readers will often find it fascinating to be a fly on the wall in the Ellensohn household. However, because the book spans four generations in sometimes tedious chronological order, it also highlights mundane details that aren’t particularly gripping. For example, Eisen’s grandmother’s “chop suey,” made from watered-down soy sauce and celery and eaten during lean years, is worth noting; however, her great-grandmother’s diary entry about setting up a swing set is not. Although the author has undoubtedly created a valuable genealogical resource, casual readers may not find it as compelling as her own family might.
An expansive history, detailing the life of a Midwestern family, that’s best in small doses.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1499502718
Page Count: 226
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after...
Self-help advice and personal reflections on avoiding spousal fights while raising children.
Before her daughter was born, bestselling author Dunn (Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask, 2009, etc.) enjoyed steady work and a happy marriage. However, once she became a mother, there never seemed to be enough time, sleep, and especially help from her husband. Little irritations became monumental obstacles between them, which led to major battles. Consequently, they turned to expensive couples' therapy to help them regain some peace in life. In a combination of memoir and advice that can be found in most couples' therapy self-help books, Dunn provides an inside look at her own vexing issues and the solutions she and her husband used to prevent them from appearing in divorce court. They struggled with age-old battles fought between men and women—e.g., frequency of sex, who does more housework, who should get up with the child in the middle of the night, why women need to have a clean house, why men need more alone time, and many more. What Dunn learned via therapy, talks with other parents, and research was that there is no perfect solution to the many dynamics that surface once couples become parents. But by using time-tested techniques, she and her husband learned to listen, show empathy, and adjust so that their former status as a happy couple could safely and peacefully morph into a happy family. Readers familiar with Dunn's honest and humorous writing will appreciate the behind-the-scenes look at her own semi-messy family life, and those who need guidance through the rough spots can glean advice while being entertained—all without spending lots of money on couples’ therapy.
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after the birth of their child.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-26710-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A miscellany of paternal pride (and frustration) darkened by the author’s increasing realizations of his mortality.
Ruminations and reminiscences of an author—now in his 70s—about fatherhood, writing, and death.
O’Brien (July, July, 2002, etc.), who achieved considerable literary fame with both Going After Cacciato (1978) and The Things They Carried (1990), returns with an eclectic assembly of pieces that grow increasingly valedictory as the idea of mortality creeps in. (The title comes from the author’s uncertainty about his ability to assemble these pieces in a single volume.) He begins and ends with a letter: The initial one is to his first son (from 2003); the terminal one, to his two sons, both of whom are now teens (the present). Throughout the book, there are a number of recurring sections: “Home School” (lessons for his sons to accomplish), “The Magic Show” (about his long interest in magic), and “Pride” (about his feelings for his sons’ accomplishments). O’Brien also writes often about his own father. One literary figure emerges as almost a member of the family: Ernest Hemingway. The author loves Hemingway’s work (except when he doesn’t) and often gives his sons some of Papa’s most celebrated stories to read and think and write about. Near the end is a kind of stand-alone essay about Hemingway’s writings about war and death, which O’Brien realizes is Hemingway’s real subject. Other celebrated literary figures pop up in the text, including Elizabeth Bishop, Andrew Marvell, George Orwell, and Flannery O’Connor. Although O’Brien’s strong anti-war feelings are prominent throughout, his principal interest is fatherhood—specifically, at becoming a father later in his life and realizing that he will miss so much of his sons’ lives. He includes touching and amusing stories about his toddler sons, about the sadness he felt when his older son became a teen and began to distance himself, and about his anguish when his sons failed at something.
A miscellany of paternal pride (and frustration) darkened by the author’s increasing realizations of his mortality.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-618-03970-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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