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Growing Up Golem: How I Survived My Mother, Brooklyn, and Some Really Bad Dates
In the tradition of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, Donna Minkowitz’s Growing Up Golem is a sharply funny memoir about growing up inspired by the Jewish legend of the golem. The author's mother told Minkowitz that she could do Jewish magic and, growing up, Minkowitz completely believed her. Her mother, an unusually domineering figure, exerted even more sway over Minkowitz than mothers typically do over their children, so it is the "magical realist" premise of the book that instead of giving birth to her, her mother actually created Minkowitz as her own personal golem, a little automaton made of clay.
In the book, Minkowitz struggles to control her own life as an adult, even as she publicly appears to be a radical, take-no-prisoners lesbian journalist. In her career, dating, and especially with her own eccentric family, Minkowitz finds herself compelled to do what other people want, to horrible and hilarious effect. In sex, for example, she often feels like "a giant robot dildo."
Matters come to a head when a disabling arm injury renders her almost helpless (and permanently unable to use a computer). She must find a way to work, find people who love her, and stand up for her own desires—against the bossing she's always tolerated from girlfriends, mother, and every other single person—before her injury gets even worse.
In the book, Minkowitz struggles to control her own life as an adult, even as she publicly appears to be a radical, take-no-prisoners lesbian journalist. In her career, dating, and especially with her own eccentric family, Minkowitz finds herself compelled to do what other people want, to horrible and hilarious effect. In sex, for example, she often feels like "a giant robot dildo."
Matters come to a head when a disabling arm injury renders her almost helpless (and permanently unable to use a computer). She must find a way to work, find people who love her, and stand up for her own desires—against the bossing she's always tolerated from girlfriends, mother, and every other single person—before her injury gets even worse.
218 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 26, 2013
2 people are currently reading
444 people want to read
About the author
Donna Minkowitz
4 books9 followersDonna Minkowitz is the author of two memoirs, Growing Up Golem and Ferocious Romance. Both of them were finalists for the Lambda Literary Award (and Ferocious Romance won it). Both have VERY long subtitles. Both are funny, intimate, and kind of dark.
Way back in the day, Donna Minkowitz was a feature writer and columnist on queer politics and culture for the Village Voice. Science-fiction writer Terry Bisson said of Golem, which has some magical realist elements, "Rich and wild, dark and funny, as fearless as her legendary journalism and as scary as a fairy tale. A serious writer at the top of her game."
Other places you can find her work are the New York Times Book Review, Salon, The Nation and New York magazine.
Way back in the day, Donna Minkowitz was a feature writer and columnist on queer politics and culture for the Village Voice. Science-fiction writer Terry Bisson said of Golem, which has some magical realist elements, "Rich and wild, dark and funny, as fearless as her legendary journalism and as scary as a fairy tale. A serious writer at the top of her game."
Other places you can find her work are the New York Times Book Review, Salon, The Nation and New York magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 26, 2015
Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child meets Portnoy's Complaint--heartbreaking and go for broke gonzo, often in the same sentence.
Who knew Golems could have so much soul?
For years I've asked myself: Who's the Feminist Philip Roth?
Donna Minkowitz, maybe.
Who knew Golems could have so much soul?
For years I've asked myself: Who's the Feminist Philip Roth?
Donna Minkowitz, maybe.
November 13, 2013
When I saw this book I was fascinated by the idea of the magic realist memoir - the idea of combining magic realism and non-fiction. I was interested to see how the author managed it and whether it did seem arch. The answer, dear reader, is that it works brilliantly.
The author's mother appears to have been the Jewish mother from hell, manipulative, demanding, and egotistical. Add to that an abusive father, whose response to the taunting of his wife was to beat the daughter, and it is no surprise that psychological damage was done to their daughters and to Donna specifically. This damage is portrayed through the image of the Golem.
"The Golem of Jewish tradition are artificial persons that learned sixteenth century rabbis made out of wet clay to do everything their makers told them to. Their masters could destroy them by the erasing of just one letter in a word."
Throughout the book the author portrays herself ( and her sisters) as golems: "I have known I was a magical being, handcrafted rather than born, from my earliest days. I'm not sure when I first found out, but it goes back at least to the time my mother , when I was four, began telling me and my sisters that she herself could perform at magic, could make us do anything she wanted, like puppets."
Like the golem of old she feels bound to obey her mother and the other women (and occasional men) who enter her life. She is unable to say no. In addition golems are bred for self-disgust and a permanent discipline and this leads her into other abusive relationships. Some of these relationships are sexual (a number of lesbian affairs are described in some detail), but other non-sexual relationships are also abusive, including sadly with therapists who are supposed to be helping Donna.
This could be heavy stuff but for the way the author delivers her story, using magic realism and wry humour, indeed this book it is at times laugh-out-loud funny. The magic realism both explains and puts an emotional distance between the reader and the subject matter. Ironically that detachment reflects the author's own psychology: a golem cannot feel.
"How do you break a golem spell?
It is not easy, my dear puppet and acolyte.
The only way there is, is feeling pain."
The pain that breaks the spell for Donna Minkowitz is that of RSI, a particularly debilitating illness if you are a writer. The pain forces her to look after herself, to protect her arms, and in so doing refuse her mother and others. The story is therefore one of healing, for just as her arms slowly heal so the author heals her psyche and sheds her golem identity. As it happens I am writing this blog and my current book using voice recognition software because I too have developed RSI. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for her coping with severe RSI over several years. It seems an awful lot of pain to go through to break an evil spell. But to Minkowitz it all seems to have been worthwhile: "I felt feelings from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. My head felt effervescent, as though a flowery beer had been poured into it and my hair was curling up from the blood vessels in my scalp to the tips of my curls."
This review first appeared on the Magic Realism Books Blog http://magic-realism-books.blogspot.com I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in return for a fair review.
The author's mother appears to have been the Jewish mother from hell, manipulative, demanding, and egotistical. Add to that an abusive father, whose response to the taunting of his wife was to beat the daughter, and it is no surprise that psychological damage was done to their daughters and to Donna specifically. This damage is portrayed through the image of the Golem.
"The Golem of Jewish tradition are artificial persons that learned sixteenth century rabbis made out of wet clay to do everything their makers told them to. Their masters could destroy them by the erasing of just one letter in a word."
Throughout the book the author portrays herself ( and her sisters) as golems: "I have known I was a magical being, handcrafted rather than born, from my earliest days. I'm not sure when I first found out, but it goes back at least to the time my mother , when I was four, began telling me and my sisters that she herself could perform at magic, could make us do anything she wanted, like puppets."
Like the golem of old she feels bound to obey her mother and the other women (and occasional men) who enter her life. She is unable to say no. In addition golems are bred for self-disgust and a permanent discipline and this leads her into other abusive relationships. Some of these relationships are sexual (a number of lesbian affairs are described in some detail), but other non-sexual relationships are also abusive, including sadly with therapists who are supposed to be helping Donna.
This could be heavy stuff but for the way the author delivers her story, using magic realism and wry humour, indeed this book it is at times laugh-out-loud funny. The magic realism both explains and puts an emotional distance between the reader and the subject matter. Ironically that detachment reflects the author's own psychology: a golem cannot feel.
"How do you break a golem spell?
It is not easy, my dear puppet and acolyte.
The only way there is, is feeling pain."
The pain that breaks the spell for Donna Minkowitz is that of RSI, a particularly debilitating illness if you are a writer. The pain forces her to look after herself, to protect her arms, and in so doing refuse her mother and others. The story is therefore one of healing, for just as her arms slowly heal so the author heals her psyche and sheds her golem identity. As it happens I am writing this blog and my current book using voice recognition software because I too have developed RSI. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for her coping with severe RSI over several years. It seems an awful lot of pain to go through to break an evil spell. But to Minkowitz it all seems to have been worthwhile: "I felt feelings from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. My head felt effervescent, as though a flowery beer had been poured into it and my hair was curling up from the blood vessels in my scalp to the tips of my curls."
This review first appeared on the Magic Realism Books Blog http://magic-realism-books.blogspot.com I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in return for a fair review.
September 24, 2014
A both hilarious and heartbreaking look at the life of a Jewish-American lesbian struggle to overcome both a crippling injury, and a lifelong stream of domineering woman
March 3, 2014
The words "magical realist memoir" might be scary, invoking the idea that this could be a tripped out, stream of consciousness narrative. It isn't. It's an incredibly clear-eyed and coherent journey through Minkowitz's life and her struggle to come to grips with her incredibly problematic parents and sister, each of whom is an emotional bully of a different stripe. There's a way in which this can be read as a coming-of-age story, but unlike the ingenues in fiction who "come of age" when they are 21 or 25 or whatever the hip age is these days for tender young things, Minkowitz doesn't come of age until SHE WRITES THIS MEMOIR. It's almost as if you can feel her maturing, growing, and learning while writing the book, not just while living through what she describes. This is why the whole "golem" metaphor works so well. Minkowitz writes that a golem has one chance to become a real human, like PInocchio becoming a real boy, but for golems to do so, they must suffer intense pain. The RSI that cripples her arms and her writing career and the eventual recovery from it becomes understandable, parsable, through the idea that it is what finally allow Minkowitz to slough off the "death-ray"-beaming persona that her mother created and become a whole, functional person at last. I enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed the reminiscing about what GLBT politics were like in the 1990s.
July 13, 2015
This book. Wow. I'm not even sure where to start. I guess I'll begin with my first issue. The book is written in second person. While this can be done well, this was not one of those times. The author talked directly to the reader, and repeatedly used the phrase "reader," which I found quite annoying. Also, I thought it was going to be witty, maybe touching, but I ended up incredibly confused. As you can see with my shelf choices, one was magical realism. Minkowitz speaks extensively about being a golem and not being human. At first I thought it was metaphorical, but she doesn't let up. It became too much. What finally caused me to finally stop reading was Minkowitz's discussion about her mother in red lingerie. I'm sorry, but you do not have sexual feelings at seven. No. Stop. (and I'm not spoiling anything. This is within the first 10ish percent of the book). As a queer woman, I feel like I can speak, at this moment, on behalf of us. Just because we see some boobs, does not mean we suddenly become excited. That's freaking ridiculous. Makes me want to scream. So maybe some of you will like this book more than I did. If you do, let me know. Tell me what I missed. But this is what I experienced. Good luck for all you willing to give it a try.
July 7, 2014
This bold and imaginative memoir is billed as a "magical realist memoir," which makes total sense once you get reading. The ingenious conceit here is that Minkowitz's mother created her as a golem (she did in fact once make the adult Minkowitz "a half-life-size doll that looked just like me"). It's a wonderful metaphor that helps Minkowitz gets at her feelings of being controlled by a powerful parental force and, terrifyingly, of being less than fully human. It's very brave to acknowledge the latter sense (or lack of sense) of self--probably far more common than is admitted to--and to explore it. Also brave is Minkowitz's accounting of her forays into sadomasochistic sexuality and the extent to which they may have related to her difficult upbringing (physically abusive father, a mother who, let's just say, didn't really get the concept of boundaries). The ending, when Minkowitz meets her current wife, is a little rushed. Three cheers for a happy ending, but I wish Minkowitz had chosen to explore that happiness as creatively as her unhappiness.
December 16, 2014
Minkowitz is an excellent writer. She's also a survivor of emotional, mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse, as well as emotional incest perpetrated by her substance-abusing mother. In other words, one damaged pup. The golem conceit of this memoir is brilliant, and in addition to the survivor-of-abuse account the book is interesting as a study of a disability, repetitive strain injury.
I just wish Minkowitz had waited another 10 or 15 years before writing this. Her book reminded me of a speaker I once heard in a 12-step meeting, who told so many personal details of abuse that people literally squirmed in their seats, and who had no balancing stories of recovery to offer. Maybe after 10 or 15 more years, Minkowitz would have developed a better sense of boundaries, not trashed and laid bare her ex-lovers and friends, and devoted more than 3 pages to the woman we're supposed to believe will make everything okay.
I just wish Minkowitz had waited another 10 or 15 years before writing this. Her book reminded me of a speaker I once heard in a 12-step meeting, who told so many personal details of abuse that people literally squirmed in their seats, and who had no balancing stories of recovery to offer. Maybe after 10 or 15 more years, Minkowitz would have developed a better sense of boundaries, not trashed and laid bare her ex-lovers and friends, and devoted more than 3 pages to the woman we're supposed to believe will make everything okay.
January 12, 2020
I totally enjoyed its frank honesty and the idea of being a creature created by our parents (one or the other or both) and, inescapably controlled by them. The description of family dynamics resonated with my own experiences and the story is told in a compelling way. Highly recommend.
January 6, 2024
Searing memoir. Loved the depiction of NYC gay community (and limits to) and journalism in 80s/90s. So horribly painful. Golem figure makes possible exploring that pain--and yet it seems it may be far deeper yet. The honesty about violence in intimacy, about odd details of everyday life made me highly appreciative. Of course I want to know more about class and Yale....but that's me.
October 7, 2018
This was a doozy of a memoir; a heavy read that tackles a tortured life of disturbing traumas, career advancements and trips, and personal entanglements. The magical realist element highlights her self-discomfort, disturbingly viewing herself as more of an amalgamated mess of odious parts rather than actual human. Ultimately, the metaphor is an alarming bit of self-awareness.
Initially when reading, I was distracted by the numerous grammatical, mechanical and spelling errors littered throughout Minkowitz's writing, but when I finally realized this was a stylistic choice and (more than likely) circumstantial reality from the use of dictation software, I felt much more affected by her writing.
The stories in this memoir are a mixed lot, but the last few chapters pick up, providing more introspection into the real crux of her story. I was relieved to see her finally get to the heart of the matters that were clearly more important to her than petty details about random interns or bad hookups. She admits it herself that she was incredibly reluctant to get to the hardest-hitting part of her story about her mother’s ultimate demise and relationship with her sister. Once she finally dives in, instead of looking for a neat segue, it provides a good lesson that hard topics must be jumped into head first, without the safety net of an easy access point.
Initially when reading, I was distracted by the numerous grammatical, mechanical and spelling errors littered throughout Minkowitz's writing, but when I finally realized this was a stylistic choice and (more than likely) circumstantial reality from the use of dictation software, I felt much more affected by her writing.
The stories in this memoir are a mixed lot, but the last few chapters pick up, providing more introspection into the real crux of her story. I was relieved to see her finally get to the heart of the matters that were clearly more important to her than petty details about random interns or bad hookups. She admits it herself that she was incredibly reluctant to get to the hardest-hitting part of her story about her mother’s ultimate demise and relationship with her sister. Once she finally dives in, instead of looking for a neat segue, it provides a good lesson that hard topics must be jumped into head first, without the safety net of an easy access point.
December 9, 2015
An absolutely captivating read!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews