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What Remains: Object Lessons in Love and Loss
Being left with a strand of even the highest quality milky-white pearls isn’t quite the same thing as pearls of wisdom to live by, as Karen von Hahn reveals in her memoir about her stylish and captivating mother, Susan — a mercurial, grandiose, Guerlain-and-vodka-soaked narcissist whose search for glamour and fulfillment through the acquisition and collection of beautiful things ultimately proved hollow.
A tale of growing up in 1970s and 1980s Toronto in the fabulousness of a bourgeois Jew-ish family that valued panache over pragmatism and making a design statement over substance, von Hahn’s recollections of her dramatic and domineering mother are exemplified by the objects she held most dear: from a strand of prized pearls, to a Venetian mirror worthy of the palace of Versailles, to the silver satin sofas that were the epitome of her signature style. She also describes the misunderstandings and sometimes hurt and pain that come with being raised by her stunning, larger-than-life mother who in many ways embodied the flash-and-glam, high-flying, wealth-accumulating generation that gave birth to our modern-day material culture.
Alternating between satire and sadness, von Hahn reconstructs the past through a series of exquisitely impressionistic memories, ultimately questioning the value of the things we hold dear and — after her complicated, yet impossible-to-forget mother is gone — what exactly remains.
A tale of growing up in 1970s and 1980s Toronto in the fabulousness of a bourgeois Jew-ish family that valued panache over pragmatism and making a design statement over substance, von Hahn’s recollections of her dramatic and domineering mother are exemplified by the objects she held most dear: from a strand of prized pearls, to a Venetian mirror worthy of the palace of Versailles, to the silver satin sofas that were the epitome of her signature style. She also describes the misunderstandings and sometimes hurt and pain that come with being raised by her stunning, larger-than-life mother who in many ways embodied the flash-and-glam, high-flying, wealth-accumulating generation that gave birth to our modern-day material culture.
Alternating between satire and sadness, von Hahn reconstructs the past through a series of exquisitely impressionistic memories, ultimately questioning the value of the things we hold dear and — after her complicated, yet impossible-to-forget mother is gone — what exactly remains.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published May 1, 2018
About the author
Karen Von Hahn
3 books6 followersKaren von Hahn was born in Toronto in the same year as US President Barack Obama, but as yet, she has not ruled a vast nation nor been awarded the Nobel Peace prize.
In her short yet glorious lifetime, she has however, graduated from the first class of girls at an all boys’ high school, obtained a law degree, been in the employ of a convicted fraudster, been yelled at for failing to get the right amount of foam on a cappuccino for Shirley Maclaine, married the guy who sat next to her the first day of law school, flipped a convertible, lost a fur coat, and had two children. And that was all before she became a journalist.
Starting out at Toronto Life in 1988 as the magazine’s Super Shopper, for which she won the William White award, and graduating to a weekly column which ran for close to a decade in the Globe & Mail’s Style section, Karen emerged as Canada’s pre-eminent voice on style with substance. While Karen’s lifelong shopping habit, a natural by-product of such accrued expertise, proved essential in her quest for trends in the art of consumption and meaning in the material world.
As host and producer of the groundbreaking television program The Goods for the Life Network, she introduced a whole new way of looking at social trends through the material world. At House & Home, Karen designed the magazine’s popular Trendwatch column, which she wrote for many years.
Currently the Toronto Star’s “Style Czar”, with a weekly column that appears Wednesdays in the Life section, as well as the Editor-in-chief of the downtown lifestyle publication King West magazine, the desperately insecure overachiever also contributes to a number of other publications on everything from fashion and design to food and travel, including Fashion, Azure, Chatelaine and En Route. As she enjoys nothing more than hearing her own voice, she is also a frequent public speaker on trends in design, culture and lifestyle.
In her short yet glorious lifetime, she has however, graduated from the first class of girls at an all boys’ high school, obtained a law degree, been in the employ of a convicted fraudster, been yelled at for failing to get the right amount of foam on a cappuccino for Shirley Maclaine, married the guy who sat next to her the first day of law school, flipped a convertible, lost a fur coat, and had two children. And that was all before she became a journalist.
Starting out at Toronto Life in 1988 as the magazine’s Super Shopper, for which she won the William White award, and graduating to a weekly column which ran for close to a decade in the Globe & Mail’s Style section, Karen emerged as Canada’s pre-eminent voice on style with substance. While Karen’s lifelong shopping habit, a natural by-product of such accrued expertise, proved essential in her quest for trends in the art of consumption and meaning in the material world.
As host and producer of the groundbreaking television program The Goods for the Life Network, she introduced a whole new way of looking at social trends through the material world. At House & Home, Karen designed the magazine’s popular Trendwatch column, which she wrote for many years.
Currently the Toronto Star’s “Style Czar”, with a weekly column that appears Wednesdays in the Life section, as well as the Editor-in-chief of the downtown lifestyle publication King West magazine, the desperately insecure overachiever also contributes to a number of other publications on everything from fashion and design to food and travel, including Fashion, Azure, Chatelaine and En Route. As she enjoys nothing more than hearing her own voice, she is also a frequent public speaker on trends in design, culture and lifestyle.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 9, 2017
I have lately become interested in memoirs. Everyone has a story and there is something valuable to be discovered in everyone's experience. The story in "What Remains" held my interest for the duration. The writing was strong. I appreciate strong writing, because there has been a distressing influx of mindless fluff out there in the publishing world. This was not mindless fluff, by any stretch. Something about the underlying tone of this book didn't sit right with me, though. I know that some people endure unimaginable abuse and neglect in their childhoods. I am not downplaying what the author experienced, but whatever it was, it was no "Glass Castle." I sensed some anger with her parents--particularly with her mother. I think what bothered me was that she waited until her mother was dead before she unleashed, and even though the attempt was made to show the good along with the not so good, I felt it was unfair. It was an interesting read, however.
July 6, 2017
Captivating memoir by the daughter of a larger-than-life narcissist. After her mother dies, Karen goes through her things, many of which evoke a series of memories of life with her mother. She captures those memories in this book. Each object is a chapter of related memories.
Her mother was a designer, and style was hugely important to her. She went for quality over quantity, and she loved big statement pieces. She was a complex, complicated, and often difficult person, and her daughter had a complex, complicated and often difficult relationship with her (as did others, as evidenced by friends who played huge roles in her life until they had a falling-out and were suddenly completely and permanently gone).
Karen Von Hahn is a phenomenal writer (she's a columnist with the Toronto Star) and this book sprung from what seems to be a complicated mix of grief and relief. It's a great read: sometimes funny, sometimes bitter, sometimes sad. Kind of like her mother.
Her mother was a designer, and style was hugely important to her. She went for quality over quantity, and she loved big statement pieces. She was a complex, complicated, and often difficult person, and her daughter had a complex, complicated and often difficult relationship with her (as did others, as evidenced by friends who played huge roles in her life until they had a falling-out and were suddenly completely and permanently gone).
Karen Von Hahn is a phenomenal writer (she's a columnist with the Toronto Star) and this book sprung from what seems to be a complicated mix of grief and relief. It's a great read: sometimes funny, sometimes bitter, sometimes sad. Kind of like her mother.
July 19, 2017
Clichés come about because they are based in some truth, and almost no cliché is as apt as the description of a mother-daughter relationship as "complicated."
After the death of her mother Susan, Toronto Star life and style columnist Karen von Hahn started writing about their complex and convoluted relationship. In What Remains: Object Lessons in Love and Loss, von Hahn offers her perspectives on her own mother-daughter dynamic in a beautiful series of essays that are deeply candid and deftly honest.
She starts at the end, chronicling her mother’s last days. The stories include glimpses of her life: the houses she lived in and decorated, the relationships with her family and the decision to remove her from life support.
Von Hahn’s father was a real estate developer. The family lived an unorthodox, high-flying lifestyle in the late 1970s and early 1980s, building suburbs in Toronto. When that venture ended, her father built hotels in Florida with partners from the United States.
Each of the author’s sentences is carefully crafted, each word chosen and placed with care. Long and winding or short and punchy, they combine to create a fuller picture of von Hahn’s mother.
"She was almost never dull or uninteresting and she was fabulously indulgent with everyone, most of all herself. And she loved us big and boldly."
Every chapter has a different focus — a string of pearls, a blue glass bottle in an entryway, her mother’s favourite brand of cigarettes. Together, they create a picture of a woman who was stylish and passionate, a big personality with many stories to tell.
Her mother, an interior decorator, was given to grand pronouncements and what she thought was compelling advice: "Panache, my dear; it’s all about making a clear statement and going all the way with it."
"Everyone would look a lot more attractive if they just went about with pleasant expressions."
Early on, von Hahn acknowledges the memories of her mother are shaped by her own perspective. The series of small portraits both condemns and flatters her mother, but the author is never afraid to share her true opinions and feelings, describing her mother with love and frustration in equal measure.
"My mother was made up entirely of estrogen: intuitive and mercurial, witchy and dark, earthy and glamorous, manipulative and beautiful, childlike and wise, loving and harsh, messy and gorgeous, emphatic, dramatic, operatic and terrifying. And, yes, captivating."
From the impossible expectations and excessive dramas to the heights and depths of her mother’s moods and her own reactions, the stories in What Remains deliver a very clear picture of a complicated woman and the relationship she had with her daughter.
After the death of her mother Susan, Toronto Star life and style columnist Karen von Hahn started writing about their complex and convoluted relationship. In What Remains: Object Lessons in Love and Loss, von Hahn offers her perspectives on her own mother-daughter dynamic in a beautiful series of essays that are deeply candid and deftly honest.
She starts at the end, chronicling her mother’s last days. The stories include glimpses of her life: the houses she lived in and decorated, the relationships with her family and the decision to remove her from life support.
Von Hahn’s father was a real estate developer. The family lived an unorthodox, high-flying lifestyle in the late 1970s and early 1980s, building suburbs in Toronto. When that venture ended, her father built hotels in Florida with partners from the United States.
Each of the author’s sentences is carefully crafted, each word chosen and placed with care. Long and winding or short and punchy, they combine to create a fuller picture of von Hahn’s mother.
"She was almost never dull or uninteresting and she was fabulously indulgent with everyone, most of all herself. And she loved us big and boldly."
Every chapter has a different focus — a string of pearls, a blue glass bottle in an entryway, her mother’s favourite brand of cigarettes. Together, they create a picture of a woman who was stylish and passionate, a big personality with many stories to tell.
Her mother, an interior decorator, was given to grand pronouncements and what she thought was compelling advice: "Panache, my dear; it’s all about making a clear statement and going all the way with it."
"Everyone would look a lot more attractive if they just went about with pleasant expressions."
Early on, von Hahn acknowledges the memories of her mother are shaped by her own perspective. The series of small portraits both condemns and flatters her mother, but the author is never afraid to share her true opinions and feelings, describing her mother with love and frustration in equal measure.
"My mother was made up entirely of estrogen: intuitive and mercurial, witchy and dark, earthy and glamorous, manipulative and beautiful, childlike and wise, loving and harsh, messy and gorgeous, emphatic, dramatic, operatic and terrifying. And, yes, captivating."
From the impossible expectations and excessive dramas to the heights and depths of her mother’s moods and her own reactions, the stories in What Remains deliver a very clear picture of a complicated woman and the relationship she had with her daughter.
September 4, 2017
I read this memoir over twenty-four hours. It was a library copy, recommended to me by a friend, who knew I enjoy memoirs (and wrote one myself a year ago). I found it most interesting, and the writing highly competent, given the author is a journalist, among other creative occupations.
At times I felt this was a love-letter from a daughter to her late mother, and at other times, I felt the criticism of her mom harsh, which left me sad.
There was much for me, as a reader, to identify with: many descriptions felt personal to me, identifications of the mother's habits, the era, the people, the city, etc. In fact, to my surprise, I recognized the author's father as someone I had met professionally years ago, and my late brother and family lived on their street.
The mom was full of personality, and demonstrable love for her family. She made pronouncements with conviction. I say, good for her! She was being true to herself. However, I find it sad when generations go out of style, and the next generation is puzzled and shamed into destroying what their parents cherished, whether lifestyle or goods. It's never easy.
I'm closing this review with what I find to be a profound paragraph: "When my mother was alive and at her best, everything had seemed so beautiful and sparkling, but slowly, over time, it had all become ugly, and almost false. This shift of perception came on so swiftly, it felt like I had just been awakened from a spell in a ballet based on a fairy tale. And I hadn't really even noticed everything changing around me in the last act until it was over and she was dead."(p.263)
As a woman with a glamourous late mother, and a distant, adult daughter, for me, this memoir stirred many painful emotions. But then, that makes for a successful book, doesn't it? One that moves the reader. Overall, well-done!
At times I felt this was a love-letter from a daughter to her late mother, and at other times, I felt the criticism of her mom harsh, which left me sad.
There was much for me, as a reader, to identify with: many descriptions felt personal to me, identifications of the mother's habits, the era, the people, the city, etc. In fact, to my surprise, I recognized the author's father as someone I had met professionally years ago, and my late brother and family lived on their street.
The mom was full of personality, and demonstrable love for her family. She made pronouncements with conviction. I say, good for her! She was being true to herself. However, I find it sad when generations go out of style, and the next generation is puzzled and shamed into destroying what their parents cherished, whether lifestyle or goods. It's never easy.
I'm closing this review with what I find to be a profound paragraph: "When my mother was alive and at her best, everything had seemed so beautiful and sparkling, but slowly, over time, it had all become ugly, and almost false. This shift of perception came on so swiftly, it felt like I had just been awakened from a spell in a ballet based on a fairy tale. And I hadn't really even noticed everything changing around me in the last act until it was over and she was dead."(p.263)
As a woman with a glamourous late mother, and a distant, adult daughter, for me, this memoir stirred many painful emotions. But then, that makes for a successful book, doesn't it? One that moves the reader. Overall, well-done!
April 8, 2026
I so wanted to love this book. It had all the elements to be great read: Canadian; about Canadians; my personal timeline; strong women. Instead it was only a good read.
Family dysfunctionalism at its finest. I still cannot decide if Karen was attached to her mother or if she spent her lifetime keeping her mother at arms length. Was her mother an alcoholic or did she just like drinking red wine? The reader is left to decide. What about Karen's father? Was he distance like many father's were at this time even though you found glimpses of her father being very engaged. Once again the reader gets to decide.
I was attracted to this book because, for me, it was what one is suppose to do with their parents belongings once they had passed away. Karen's mother had exquisite taste in fashion and styles. She imported furniture from overseas for example. So what does one do when the children are left to dispose of their parents belongings? Like myself Karen was left with valuable artwork, the finest of figurines and brown furniture. Items like pianos no one wants today. Since Covid, auction houses have dramatically changed. Our children are minimalists, they don't want any of these things. How unfortunate, dumpster companies are making money.
Unfortunately Karen wasted pages and pages on such items as perfumes, which had very little value to what the book was about.
Family dysfunctionalism at its finest. I still cannot decide if Karen was attached to her mother or if she spent her lifetime keeping her mother at arms length. Was her mother an alcoholic or did she just like drinking red wine? The reader is left to decide. What about Karen's father? Was he distance like many father's were at this time even though you found glimpses of her father being very engaged. Once again the reader gets to decide.
I was attracted to this book because, for me, it was what one is suppose to do with their parents belongings once they had passed away. Karen's mother had exquisite taste in fashion and styles. She imported furniture from overseas for example. So what does one do when the children are left to dispose of their parents belongings? Like myself Karen was left with valuable artwork, the finest of figurines and brown furniture. Items like pianos no one wants today. Since Covid, auction houses have dramatically changed. Our children are minimalists, they don't want any of these things. How unfortunate, dumpster companies are making money.
Unfortunately Karen wasted pages and pages on such items as perfumes, which had very little value to what the book was about.
May 31, 2024
This was just ok. I enjoyed reading about growing up in Toronto in the 70s/80s It was interesting because all families have their issues. Karen’s was no exception. Affluence has it perks lol. I liked the concept of the story - we spend our life collecting things and then at the end of life trying to get rid of it! The kids don’t want your old stuff! Lol We can’t get attached to our things because it’s all just “stuff” at the end of life!!
May 8, 2017
I loved this book, one of my favourite memoirs ever. If you've either lost a larger-than-life parent and/or grown up in '70s-era Toronto, you will adore this book. It's a nostalgic, thoughtful, at times painful, but always very elegantly written tribute to a woman whose spirit -- and treasured possessions -- still loom large over those she left behind. Don't miss this gem.
May 9, 2017
This is hands-down my favourite memoir ever. It's funny and smart and moving. Reading Von Hahn's poignant observations of her mother's story as reflected in her carefully created environs helped me to understand that things aren't just things. They're vessels which contain our memories and tell the stories of our lives. I loved it...or as Susan Young would say; "I loved, loved, loved it!!!"
June 10, 2017
Full review: http://wp.me/p36jwx-199
October 16, 2017
Toronto memories of a time in a particular family. Really good. I felt that I knew some of the characters.
October 17, 2017
A memoir about Karen's fun loving yet difficult 'loves to be the centre of attention' mother.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 25, 2018
The author writes of her glamorous, extravagant and mentally unstable mother and their family who lived in the toniest neighbourhoods in Toronto.
October 31, 2018
Recommended by mom
October 21, 2019
In equal parts parts sad and funny, but mostly clever
September 27, 2020
Some good stories in here but I didn’t quite finish the book as it became quite repetitive. Maybe I just couldn’t connect or relate to the stories of the wealthy and wild family.
May 8, 2017
The life of a truly fascinating "bigger than life" personality seen through the lens of the objects that define her. A rare romp through Toronto in the 70s and 80s. And a must read for anyone who is struggling to understand the passing of a parent.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews