An important personal and sociological perspective on women’s lives.
An insightful look at the relationships between senior mothers and their middle-aged daughters.
Butler (Cancer in Two Voices, 1991, etc.) and Gefen (Clear Lake, 2013, etc.) are both mothers in their 70s, navigating the shifting dynamics with their adult daughters. They note, in an introduction, the current lack of resources for older mothers and the lack of books on motherhood in general that simply describe experiences rather than criticize them. For this collaborative work, they interviewed 78 mothers, ages 65 to 85, all of whom have daughters in middle age. Most of the interview subjects live in the San Francisco Bay Area but are diverse in terms of ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation. To protect their subjects’ privacy, Butler and Gefen wisely created six composite mothers “who represent the demographic characteristics of those in our study.” Each chapter discusses one of eight themes that emerged over the course of the interviews, such as how mothers define their closeness to their children, how they accept changing roles and navigate traumas, and how they prepare themselves and their kids for the future. In general, the authors found that older mothers understand their children’s many commitments but still want more from their current relationships: “We are struck again and again with their strong yearning to be close to their daughters at this time in their lives,” the authors note. To relate these findings, they aptly weave their conversations with interviewees into their general conclusions. For example, “Margo” tells of her daughter “Elise,” who lives in a cottage in the backyard, and she provides an exception to the aforementioned pattern of wanting more closeness: “She’s right under my nose all the time,” she says. “I suppose that’s being close.” Such frank admissions bring this book to life, because although readers know that Margo is a composite, her comments, and those of other mothers, ring true. And even though Butler and Gefen often search for patterns, they recognize that “no two mother-daughter relationships are alike,” nor should they be. Most older mothers of daughters will connect to at least one narrative in this book, which also includes discussion questions.
An important personal and sociological perspective on women’s lives.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63152-278-9
Page Count: 300
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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