Book Description
According to reports, it costs upwards of $190,000 just to get a child to the point that college is a possibility. But none of these studies takes into account the hidden fees of parenthood: the doubling of caffeine expenses to combat sleep deprivation, new membership dues for exciting clubs such as Weight Watchers, and escalating photo-processing bills.
While other parents resign themselves to covering these necessities without a word of acknowledgment, Betsy Howie decided to keep a running account of her daughter's first year of debt: her hilarious memoir, Callie's Tally. "I want my daughter to know how much life costs and what things are worth," she writes. "I want her to know what she's worth."
"I would also like to get some money back."
Describing how having a child turned her bank account (and her life) upside down, Howie debates such topics as whether babies should pay for post-partum candy binges, in-utero rent, and travel expenses incurred while being shown off to in-laws. Part Bridget Jones's Diary (after Bridget snags the boy) and part Operating Instructions (for the fiscally obsessed), this witty chronicle offers a receipt-by-receipt answer to the question: exactly how much does a baby cost?
Customer Reviews:
Laugh Out Loud Funny.......2005-04-01
I loved this book. I laughed so much and insisted on reading passages to my mom and/or husband throughout the book. As a first time mom of a baby girl, it was so funny to hear her take on the first year.
It's very much in the same comic vein as the "girlfriend's guides" books. Raising a child is serious business, but you need to have a sense of humor!
I sympathize with her desire a) to take back some control over the tumultuous event of having a child and b) reclaim and reintegrate your "old" life into this new one. I loved reading the financial "categories" for her expenses.
I highly recommend the book and will add it to my list of baby shower gift books!
Humerous Look at Finacial Part in Having a Child.......2004-04-22
I saw this book at a library display and decided to read it. What a refreshing and unique way of looking at having a baby, especially a daughter. I was able to relate to so many of the stories and laugh at the creativity of the author. Wonderful book.
Great book for a soon-to-be first time mom!.......2004-01-16
Come on Jessica from Michigan, lighten up! You didn't "get" this book at all, did you even read it? She's not actually charging her daughter anything, just trying to figure out what it really costs financially, and even more so the huge life changes involved in having a child. And her eventual point is that we ALL owe each other... in ways that you can't ever really count, and it doesn't matter because you can't count what you get in return either. I certainly owe my mother more than I could ever pay her, for the financial, physical, and emotional sacrifices she's made. I expect that it will be the same way when I have a daughter... in fact, my having a daughter is one way of trying to repay my mother. That's just how it goes. This book made me think, more than anything else I've read, about what my mother's done for me, and the changes that I'll go through when my baby is born. I laughed, I cried, and I have a whole new appreciation for my mom, and for what I'm getting ready to do. I plan to buy it for the next friend who gets pregnant!
This book left me bitter towards the woman who wrote it........2003-09-15
First of all, this woman has "unprotected sex for several weeks" and now she has the nerve to bill her first born for all the expenses. If she made the choice to to put herself in that situation then she should have been responsible for the outcome. Her daughter Callie was in no way indebted to her mother for her mother's actions. This book was dreadful and I can't imagine any mother indebting her own unborn child.
Take responsibility for your own actions, your child owes you nothing.
So I guess Callie will be billing her mother for all Callie's psychologist appointments when she is older.
The Perfect Book for a first time mom!!.......2003-07-07
Loved it. I wish I had it when my daughter was born. Betsy writes about so many of the ups and downs of the first year. I will be purchasing it for all girlfriends when their first children are born!
Book Description
Separated from her mother at an early age, Tara Elgin Holley became her mother's legal guardian at age 16 and set about trying to rescue the blonde fairy princess she remembered from the shambling street person her mother had become. An inspiring story of one woman's struggle to struggle through the pain to reach a better understanding of her mother, herself and a devastating mental illness.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book that provided much comfort.......2003-11-13
As a young woman with a mother who has paranoid schizophrenia, this book was invaluable to me. My mom was missing for 12 years, and I received this as a gift not long after finding her (about a year and a half ago). It was personally very comforting for me to read this wonderful book, and I would recommend it to anyone. Ms. Holley's close bond with her mom reminded me of the bond I had/have with mine, and the inherently conflicted feelings that result from that bond.
A Must Read.......2002-10-23
My Mother's Keeper is an excellent autobiography/biography in one of a mother and daughter and their separate and entwined lives. I am a mental health RN and have been studying about schizophrenia. This book has helped me see in places I have never been able to see into before. I now have a broader perspective of schizophrenia and how families must feel also. Ms. Holley's writing is easy to read and follow. So much so, that it is very hard to put the book down. This is definitely a must read for anyone who wants to find out more about schizophrenia.
Moving telling of a difficult story.......1999-06-02
This was an exceptionally well written memoir, one that must have been very difficult to write. Ms. Elgin moves gracefully along the line between her mother's story and her own, and (it appears) honestly grapples with the ups and downs of both. Thank you.
Accurate, yet sensitive and personal.......1998-07-17
This book provides an accurate description of the development and chronic course of schizophrenia, one of the most debilitating illnesses of our time. The Holleys' sensitive portrayal of Mrs. Elgin's life touched me deeply. I thank them for giving us and honest depiction of this illness.
A must read for anyone curious about schizophrenia.......1998-02-01
I fell in love with this book from the first page and couldn't put it down. The author takes you through the beginning of a beautiful singing career of her mother to the painful discovery of a life long mental illness. It truely gave me a new understanding of schizophrenia and the affect it has on family and friends.
Book Description
The daughter of esteemed writer Paula Fox and the mother of Courtney Love relates “the curse of the first-born daughter” that has haunted four generations of her family.
As an adopted child, Linda Carroll created a magical world of her own, made up of dramatic adventures and the abiding fantasy that her real mother would come and take her away. When she finds herself pregnant at the age of eighteen, she is determined to have the perfect understanding with her child that she lacked with her adoptive mother. But readers will know better, for that baby grows up to be Courtney Love, desperately attention-seeking, deeply troubled, and one of the most talented women in rock.
Even as a baby, Courtney is beset by mood swings that no doctor can explain or cure. Her dark moods and paranoia escalate as she grows up, driving mother and daughter apart. When Courtney has a daughter of her own, Linda finally decides to find her own biological mother, and end the estrangement of generations of first-born daughters.
Her Mother’s Daughter is Linda Carroll’s story of self-discovery as an adopted daughter, a childlike hippie mother and a woman determined to find herself before finding her roots. Set apart from the typical celebrity memoir by Carroll’s gifted storytelling, Her Mother’s Daughter gives a fresh perspective on the elusive yet enduring connections between mothers and daughters, and reveals the true history of the wildly confabulatory Courtney Love.
LINDA CARROLL was adopted at birth, raised in San Francisco and only later discovered that her biological mother is the writer Paula Fox. Married at eighteen, and twice more before she was thirty, she is now the mother of five grown children, including singer/songwriter Courtney Love. She is a therapist and writer and lives in Corvallis, Oregon with her husband of seventeen years.
Advance Praise for Her Mother’s Daughter
“Even if you start reading Linda Carroll's memoir out of curiosity about her famous daughter and biological mother, you'll keep reading to find out more about Linda herself. This is no celebrity potboiler, but a fascinating, beautifully written work of narrative nonfiction; Carroll unites the intimate perspective of a psychologist, the contextual sense of a historian, and the clarity of a fine biographer in one absorbing package. One of her central themes is what she calls the "curse of the first-born daughter," and it does seem that a tendency to live fascinating but difficult lives runs in these women's veins. But so, apparently, does the talent of drawing, holding, and rewarding our attention. Bravo, Linda Carroll!”
—Martha Beck, author of Expecting Adam and Finding Your Own North Star
“There is a delicious fictional quality to this true-life story that I found riveting. In Carroll's deft telling, the book is a kind of resurrection of a family…. I think I loved Her Mother's Daughter most for the devotion that Linda Carroll has for her unusual family through decades of separations and unconventional journeys.”
--Terry Ryan, author of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
“Looking backward and forward in time, this haunting memoir tells the story of a young woman’s journey to finding herself, her birth mother, and her daughter, Courtney Love. The candor and power of these pages illuminates the difficulties of all mother-daughter relationships, but offers a rare glimpse into that elemental relationship when it is shadowed by the temperamental features of early-onset bipolar disorder. Linda Carroll has grit and grace, and writes like her mother’s daughter.”
—Demitri F. Papolos, M.D. and Janice Papolos, authors of The Bipolar Child
Customer Reviews:
Best book club selection .......2007-04-25
My books club cloose "Her Mother's Daughter" for our April meeting and we were so into Linda Carroll's story that we had to meet the following week to finish our discussion. Mothers and daughters, relationships with men, finding yourself, finding what spiritual means, friendships, mental illness, death, birth, accepting life's bumps with grace laughter and compassion and going back after 30 years to find your first love, forgiveness, and lots of Catholic craziness of the 50's...this book has it all. Her descriptions of San Francisco are astounding and meaningful, ( I have lived here for 15 years)..I could imagine perfectly sitting at The Green Valley Resturant or Alioto's market at Fishermens Wharf. So is the way she describes having attention deficit disorder,"Fidget and Squirm were like an angry couple that lived in my body. Their constant warring made it impossible for me to sit still." I look at my students who struggle the same problem through new eyes. Its a fantastic book, colorful, intimate, honest, and thoughtful.
Excellent read!.......2007-04-20
I loved this book, I devoured it in a weekend. It was interesting to learn more about Courtney Love that explained why she acts so insane at times. But I really fell in love with her mom's story. I could completely identify with the victimizing kind of family life she grew up in. She is painfully honest and very insightful.
This is a great book........2007-03-15
This book is a really great. I can't put it down. It aslo was delivered pretty quickly and was cheap.
When is the movie coming out?.......2007-01-18
I just read about this book in a rave review in an old Entertainment book, I agree with the other readers who say she describes the decades with just the right emphasis. What a great movie this would be; the themes are universal.Attitudes about religion, relationships, child-raising sex, drugs and rock and roll and how they changed through time and the core of the book which is one woman's finding her roots within herself. I have been expecting it to appear on TV or as a film, it would be a blockbuster.
As a Catholic (I'm a decade younger and had it a little easier than she did) I felt her determination to find spirituality in her life heroic, (in spite of her religion) and it seems she really did get there. I too loved the last chapter. I am sure she could have done a lot more with her relationship with Paula Fox, but can understand why she didn't. All in all, a really grand story, well written, intimate and real.Hope to see it on a movie screen.
Enjoyable and Insightful, a Page-Turner.......2007-01-17
I purchased this book because of its generational mother-to-daughter topic, knowing that with Linda Carroll being both a psychologist and an adoptee, she would add dual perceptions. Her book is clearly insightful, especially in Carroll's ways of dealing with the feelings of the adopted child (and somewhat less so of the adoptive parents' feelings), and she truly reveals some of the harmful "denial" aspects of adoption of the 1940s and 1950s, with its "don't ask, don't tell" philosophy--that somewhat veiled and secretive view of the adoption process all around: the biological parents, the adoptive parents, and the adopted child all becoming unknowing victims of that process. At that time, to be enlightened was to "forget about the past." Linda Caroll makes it clear that one can never be quite whole without all of those pieces to put into their places.
Where Carroll is lacking slightly is in her depth of understanding of her adoptive parents' feelings and her own troubled daughter's, although she tries honestly and valiantly to do. Some parts still seem to be missing, and the reader comes away, mostly towards the end, sensing that some parts are just not there.
Nevertheless, it is a well written book, and one that I couldn't put down. It also offers some insight into the 1960s and early 1970s in terms of our views of what works in a family, and what we know now, just doesn't.
Book Description
In this beautifully crafted book, Elizabeth Kendall tells the story of a family, of a passionate attachment between a mother and a daughter and the sudden tragedy that tears it apart.
American Daughter is also a brilliant portrait of wellborn women's lives in cities and towns in the post-World War II era, as Kendall evokes how difficult it was to become anything other than an American daughter, which meant being a dependent woman.
Occupying a coveted place in St. Louis's privileged high society, Henry and Betty Kendall seemed to be the American dream come true: six children, a sprawling house, a legacy of higher education at Harvard and Vassar. Yet underneath lay the flawed marriage of an idealistic young woman who made her eldest daughter her best friend and turned civil rights into her salvation. Elizabeth maintained the family silence as eccentricities began to appear in her father's behavior, along with whispers of financial difficulties. She accompanied her mother back to Vassar for a summer program on the home and family, then came into her own, away from her family, at the haven of a girls' summer camp and at Radcliffe. From the war-torn 1940s, when young men in uniform, home on leave, went to debutante parties, through the seismic social changes of the 1960s, Kendall tells the intertwined story of her mother and herself, of their powerful bond and how both shaped their lives in response to it.
Unrelentingly honest, rich with humor and insights into families and women's lives,
American Daughter is both a poignant portrait of American life at the middle of the twentieth century, and a dual coming-of-age story of a mother and a daughter, united by commitment and love, separated by a fatal accident-and by the vastly different birthrights of their generations.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
A compassionate and informed memoir found the story of Eliz.......2000-08-29
This story of a mother and a daughter strikes a balance between the personal and the historical in an interesting and informative way . Kendall's honesty , humor and intelligence make a personal story a universal one. I was moved by her descriptions of the intense mother-daughter bond and all of it's ramifications. I would recomend this book highly to anyone interested in women's roles in the last half of the twentieth century.
honest and absorbing.......2000-07-19
I found this book tremendously interesting and absorbing. It says important, perceptive things about all American mothers and daughters, while describing one specific mother/daughter relationship that was both heroic and tragic. An admirably honest, fascinating book.
Moving, tender tribute and social chronicle.......2000-06-27
This is the most poignant and introspective memoir this reader can recall having read. Kendall tells her personal and family story, intermingled with social and political history of the American 1950's and '60's, from the time she was born in 1947, until April 3, 1969, when, on the way to a spring vacation on the Gulf coast of Alabama, her mother was the only fatality in a car accident in which Kendall herself was the driver (She and her three brothers and a sister were all injured, but survived.). Kendall's mother, Betty, began her adult life as a young society matron, married at age nineteen to a charming but temperamental and bullying ex-Marine pilot and Harvard graduate (She herself had attended Vassar, but left college to marry, and never finished her degree.). She had six children, but despite the burden she bore at home managing her large family, she evolved into a civic leader and civil rights activist. In the meantime, she and her eldest daughter Elizabeth came to rely on each other as confidantes, companions, and friends. This book is a chronicle of white, middle class American life in the mid-twentieth century, as well as a loving tribute to a mother who was taken much too soon, and is for anyone who has lost a loved one.
A Memorable Memoir.......2000-05-10
American Daughter is not only a well-written and engaging memoir but it is almost a case history of women in the middle decades of the century. Kendall's mother came of age in the 1940's and Kendall in the 1960's; American Daughter shows the tremendous differences in the lives of women after two eventful decades. In reading this, I became attached to Kendall, her story and the people in it. American Daughter was touching and thought-provoking and WONDERFUL!
Average customer rating:
- So Amazing!!!!!!
- Joyous, Joyful
- Not your tragic mullato, and not your average black biography!
- A joyful read
- I Love This Book
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Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful
Susan Fales-Hill
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
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A.L.T.: A Memoir
ASIN: 0060523565
Release Date: 2003-04-15 |
Book Description
Growing up with a black, Auntie Mame -- like mother who performed with the likes of Lena Horne and Alvin Ailey, and a WASP seafaring father, Susan Fales-Hill thought nothing of watching her mother, Josephine Premice, perform in an acclaimed Broadway musical one moment and fleeing to Faleton, her grandparents' summer estate, the next.
But it was from her mother -- a woman who was dressed by Givenchy and sculpted by Alexander Calder, yet rejected by many a casting agent for her "dark," unconventional looks -- that Susan drew inspiration, particularly when she faced challenges in her own career as a television writer in Hollywood, a town that wasn't always receptive to positive images of people of color. As a result, the two developed a bond that mothers and daughters everywhere will find inspiring.
Dazzling in their public lives and emotionally vulnerable in their private lives, there is not a person in this touching and, at times, funny family memoir that the reader will soon forget.
Customer Reviews:
So Amazing!!!!!!.......2007-10-11
I heard about this book over the Internet and decided to buy it. I was totally amazed by the writing and the heartfelt moments in this book. I absolutely loved this book because in a way it reminds me of the relationship that I have with my mother. I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who loves tearjerkers and mother daughter stories.
Joyous, Joyful.......2007-08-26
Susan Fales-Hill presents a beautifully written story about her mother, the unforgettable Josephine Premice. While Ms. Premice was not publicly bestowed with all of the fame, fortune and accolades worthy of someone of her talent, Fales-Hill more than makes up for it with page after page of love, admiration, and respect for a woman who, through it all, always wore joy. Bravo to Ms. Fales-Hill! Bravo to Ms. Premice!
Not your tragic mullato, and not your average black biography!.......2007-03-12
I can't recall how I came across this book, but I am so glad that I purchased it. In addition to being an interesting and gripping biography, this book portrays and loving, ambitious, and well-educated black family that, as a African American woman, I just don't see enough of. I had seen the work of Susan Fales-Hill, but I had no idea she was such a inspirational woman! I was thoroughly entranced and inspired.
A joyful read.......2007-01-10
The close relationship between the author and her mother Josephine Premice was refreshing.
I Love This Book.......2005-05-24
Centrally, this book is a tribute to the author's mother Josephine Premice. To Susan Fales-Hill, she was a superstar,devoted mother and wife. Her parents were set up by a friend of her father's. Josephine, at first, refused him. Time permits and she accepts his offer of a date. The two eventually fall in love and their marriage plans wmake the front cover of The Chicago Defender, an African-American news publication. On the other side, the Yankee gentry hearing of this is shocked and dismayed by her father's choice of bride. His name is taken off the social register.
To some people, it would be a fairy tale. But this is Fales-Hill's world. They lived in thier own world where everyone was welcome. They entertained the likes of Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, and Eartha Kitt. Beneath the marriage, Ms. Hill's father had a wandering eye and her mother, despite her good looks and style, struggled to get the recognition she wanted in the entertainment industry. Premice was told she was too dark or not black enough. Hill defines her as a strong-willed woman who continued to live for the sake of her children.
What I like about this story is that it gives black women a sense of pride in themselves. Josephine and her friends took pride in their appearances even when things weren't in proper alignment. They managed to make it through good and bad times.
This is a time-honored book that will relate to black mothers and their daughters. Josephine Premice deserves her place in the entertaiment industry.
Book Description
In this twentieth anniversary edition of the feminist classic In My Mother's House, Kim Chernin tells the brave and ultimately triumphant story of Rose Chernin, Russian immigrant and passionate Old Left activist, and her daughter Kim, the narrator of this riveting memoir of conflict, confrontation, and reconciliation among four generations of Chernin women.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating personal accounts of controversial history.......2005-05-30
Poet Kim Chernin wrote the memoir "In My Mother's House" because her mother asked her to, and the book began with her mother's proposal. It took seven years for her to finish writing. The book uses a structure of alternative chapters: one in the present time, in a family setting, with the mother starting to tell a story, and the author expressing her emotions toward her mother and the writing experience; the next from her mother's POV, telling a personal story interwoven with a piece of the American Communist history before and during the McCarthy period. The mother's stories hold my interest throughout, as she was so genuinely enthusiastic about being an organizer of Communist activities, even though it meant she had to go to jail and face deportation. When she lived in the Soviet Union during 1932-34 before WWII, she found that country the realization of her idealistic dream and she loved her life there wholeheartedly. Her experience in America during the McCarthy period, on the other hand, illustrates how cruel and unjust a so-called democratic government can become when it operates on belief instead of the constitution. All this is so controversial. I kept wanting to know what the mother would think after Stalin's crimes were exposed later. It turns out the mother was never disillusioned while the daughter eventually was during her own visit to Moscow in the 1970s. It is the personal accounts of a controversial history that fascinates me, while I'm not sure how much the structure of alternative chapters helped. I think the mother's POV helped a lot, as her voice is quite distinctive from the author's and this made the mother's stories more vivid. I found the author's chapters in between her mother's storytelling somewhat uninteresting with the presentation of her own emotions too repetitive, to the point it got boring. Overall, one flaw cannot mar the jade, "In My Mother's House" was a great read.
Please Notice:.......2000-11-07
This is Kim Chernin, merely wishing to point out that you list In My Mother's House as highly available, and as at the same time out of print. It isn't out of print. I hope you can correct this. thanks. Kim
Mother and daughter revisit their struggles with communism.......2000-04-29
A compelling true story about an altruistic woman's growth as a charismatic communist organizer and the challenges/sacrifices she and her family face as a result of her ideals and activism. Starts with the mother's version of her life, including the exhilarating but few years spent in the Soviet Union shortly after the revolution, and ends with daughter's darker experience in Soviet Union and her struggle to accept her mother while rejecting her ideology.
"In My Mother's House" provides an eye-opening look at a period of history when ordinary people felt like they truly could change the world. Many may find the stark black and white view of communist activity in America they were taught in school no longer rings true.
When the mother and daughter describe their own activities, the reading is effortless. However, when Chernin diverges to comment upon the actual process of storytelling, the reader can become annoyed and bogged down by Chernin's excessive self-absorbed emoting. However, this is a tiny part of the book and can be easily skimmed over.
Rose's story is very inspirational. Many will be motivated to look at their own lives and activities and ponder how they can be of more service. Rose Chernin was a tiny woman, but fueled by her strong dedication to justice and fairness, she was able to inspire other idealistic people to change discriminatory laws and create numerous needed community organizations, such as daycare for working women.
This is a book about idealism, finding a purpose in life, mothers and daughers, feminism, communism, unions, American history, and much more. A good read for active minds.
Extraordinary Portrayal.......2000-04-28
Kim Chernin offers a heart-felt portrayal of matriarchial family history, using both her mother's unique voice and her own. Eloquantly and honestly written, Chernin sits the reader at her mother's (Rose Chernin) feet to experience first-hand the stories told in her mother's house. Born in Russia in the early 1900's, Rose speaks through Kim simply, with exquisit detail about life in the Russian Pale of Settlement, her families move to New York and her alliance with the communist party. If for no other reason, this book is worth reading purely for the portrayal of Rose's voice.
Book Description
This is the dramatic, emotional and ultimately inspiring story of how a woman’s determination and courage in the face of extremely daunting odds brought about the reunion of her family, after her husband took their children and fled to the Middle East.
Average customer rating:
- Absolutely sublime
- My Name As A Prayer
- A MUST READ for anyone with an elderly parent or friend
- charmingly told...
- Listening to the silence from the other side
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My Name As A Prayer
Manufacturer: Sheridan Creative for Troyanne Ross
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Home to Holly Springs (Father Tim, Book 1)
ASIN: 0979135508
Release Date: 2006-12-12 |
Product Description
An intimate memoir of the author's journey as her mother -- an irrepressible Southern charm school owner -- becomes ill and moves into a retirement village. A tender romance accompanies and gives comfort to the story. The book gives laughter wherever possible as the author brings readers into a series of new and sometimes unsettlng experiences.
Customer Reviews:
Absolutely sublime.......2007-05-13
This is the most moving memoir I have ever read. The intimacy Sheridan Hill shares with her readers and close attention to details is breath taking. I could not put it down. Astonishing and simply beautiful.
This is a must read for the hospice community and the families they serve.
My Name As A Prayer.......2007-04-27
I could not put this book down, so real, taking us to that uncharted territory, the death of our mother. How do we stay present, how do we understand our relationship, how do we face death and find life?
Sheridan Hill tells her story with such detail and honesty. I am no longer afraid of death, for my parents or myself after reading this book.
A MUST READ for anyone with an elderly parent or friend.......2007-03-20
I'm one of the "baby boom" generation, we who once shouted "never trust anyone over twenty-five!" And now we are in our forties, fifties, and sixties, often facing alone the crisis of the death of a parent or loved one. Our culture has ill prepared us for this passage, a society that dwells on youth and so carefully hides away death. I lost both of my parents several years back and only wish I had first read Ms. Hill's book, it would have served as a guide, and reaffirmed as well the rightness of decisions I made for the sake of my mother and father. It is not a book about death, it is a book about living and sharing to the fullest one's final journey with a parent.
I will freely admit I wept repeatedly as I read Ms. Hill's beautifully crafted tome which honors and celebrates her mother's final months. Reading it made me realize that so much of what I experienced was valid, that I was not alone in my feelings and gave me new and hopeful insights into my own life and the spiritual journey of my mother and father.
If you just read these reviews and do not buy the book, please heed her advice from this reviewer. Listen to your parents now, talk with them, share and recall all the moments, good and bad, and fight with all your passion to insure their time of passage is a time that is respectful of their dignity. Though I do hope you purchase this work even though the subject might be the last one on your mind at this moment. For someday it will occupy your life front and center and Ms. Hill is a guide you can turn to and trust.
charmingly told..........2007-03-09
Refreshing for the heart -- as eternal family values wait til the end of one's life to come to light. I want my siblings to read this. How I wish I had had time with my own mother before her passing!
Listening to the silence from the other side.......2007-02-26
My Name As A Prayer is a book you will want to read more than once, as I intend to do. But first I have to get copies to my sister and my sister-in-law, for I think this book will speak especially to mothers and daughters. However, as a former hospice volunteer and as someone who was present during the months my parents were dying and being cared for by hospice, I find that Sheridan Hill's book also has much to teach even those of us--male or female--who have already seen our parents or other loved ones pass on. I remember once when I was alone with a dying woman--or so I thought--and listening to her have a long conversation with unseen others in the room...and the peace it brought her. I could only hear her side of the conversation; there was only silence when she wasn't speaking, but it was surely "holy silence" wherein she could hear what she needed to hear, even though I couldn't. Sheridan Hill's thoughts on "holy silence" and the need to allow the dying to be present (i.e., not overly medicated) at their own deaths are insightful, I think, and worth the price of the book alone. Of course, simply being present, via the book, with Ms. Hill to hear her beautiful story is worth the price of the book, too.
Product Description
Feel the burden and heartache as a daughter watches her parent become like a child. This book is a personal look into the life of a caregiver.
Customer Reviews:
Experience is the best teacher.......2007-09-22
This is a great help for a caregiver. In taking care of my Mother I am finding experience to be the best teacher. Thank you Susie for sharing that with us. In traveling this road we need all the help we can for our loved one and for us. Praise God for your strength and courage in sharing with all of us the true meaning of love. God Bless you always, Elaine.
Average customer rating:
- Most poignant memoir of a mother/daughter relationship
- Eloquent and Fine
- Wonderful book!
- A daughter's memoir, with her mother's letters and art
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My Mother Dying
Hillary Johnson
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0312199309 |
Book Description
Do we ever really know who our parents are?
When Hillary Johnson learned that her mother had terminal cancer, she left New York City and returned to Minneapolis to care for her mother in her final years. While coping with the practical and emotional difficulties such a situation would cause any daughter, she slowly discovered what she had failed to see in the two decades since she'd left home for college and later career: her mother's identity as a woman, independent of the role of mother or wife.
In vivid snapshots of memory Johnson recalls her intense and sometimes troubled relationship with her irrepressible parent, Ruth Jones, who married at eighteen, had two young children by the time she was twenty-one and a few years later moved to Paris with her young children in search of a more fulfilling life. "Gone to Paris, took the kids," read the note she left her husband.
MY MOHER DYING is a beautifully written and emotionally compelling account of how two woman get to look beyond the role of mother and daughter and see two complex individuals who are given a final chance to truly know one another under the pressure of impending death.
Customer Reviews:
Most poignant memoir of a mother/daughter relationship.......2000-10-14
I feel I cannot do justice writing a review on such a high caliber memoir. Emotions run so deep and the characters are made so lifelike that I felt such a kinship with this family. Hillary Johnson is a fantastic writer and a fabulous daughter and caretaker. She deserves five gold stars for the wonderful job she did taking care of her mother through such dramatic medical horrors. I am honored and enriched for having read her book. Her mother was the bravest of women who faced life and illness with the best attitude possible. Her book will be the biggest help to me as my mother's health continues to decline. Thank you to both of you, Hillary and Ruth. Your mother was absolutely right to encourage the writing of this painful, truthful account of her living and dying. I am ordering it now for my sisters.
Eloquent and Fine.......2000-03-03
This "shared memoir" is a gem in every way: from the author's eloquent writing style to her mother's whimsical yet provocative drawings and even the smooth surfaces of the pages. Like the physical feel of the pages and the colors in her mother's artwork, the authors' words are finely wrought and rich. I didn't want to put the book down.
Wonderful book!.......2000-01-31
This book is a entrancing autobiography and biography of a woman and her mother and in particular the story of a rekindeling of their connection as adults when the mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Unlike the suggestion of the title this is not a depressing story, it is strongly life affirming, funny and an interesting look at two remarkable women. It has helped me greatly in dealing with my own mother's death from cancer. I recomend it highly!
A daughter's memoir, with her mother's letters and art.......1999-09-28
I have just finished reading MY MOTHER DYING by Hillary Johnson, art by Ruth Jones, the mother Johnson nursed during her final illness. This is a beautiful memoir to the complex relationship of mothers and daughters, a memoir addressing those who have cared for and wathced a loved one die, a memoir about the coming of age of a woman who became a wife and mother at a very young age in the fifties. Ms. Johnson has captured the magnificence and complexity of the mother-daughter relationship, an artist's struggle to express herself, a family member dealing with the myriad of problems that are present in watching a loved one pass on. The author's prose is glorious, and she uses many notes her mother wrote to her after she was rendered mute fom throat cancer surgery. Johnson has preserved the many legal pads filled by her Mother after her surgery, and uses them in her book to give a voice to Ruth for all, and a voice from Ruth to her daughter. The bonus for readers is the reproduction of Ruth Jones' art, whimsical and telling of her life, and the insight it gave her daughter into her mother's own self expression.
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