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
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
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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