For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors

by Laura Esther Wolfson

Laura Esther Wolfson’s literary debut draws on years of immersion in the Russian and French languages; struggles to gain a basic understanding of Judaism, its history, and her place in it; and her search for a form to hold the stories that emerge from what she has lived, observed, overheard, and misremembered. In “Proust at Rush Hour,” when her lungs begin to collapse and fail, forcing her to give up an exciting and precarious existence as a globetrotting simultaneous interpreter, she seeks consolation by reading Proust in the original while commuting by subway to a desk job that requires no more than a minimal knowledge of French. In “For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors” she gives away her diaphragm and tubes of spermicidal jelly to a woman in the Soviet Union who, with two unwanted pregnancies behind her, needs them more than she does. “The Husband Method” has her translating a book on Russian obscenities and gulag slang during the dissolution of her marriage to the Russian-speaker who taught her much of what she knows about that language. In prose spangled with pathos and dusted with humor, Wolfson transports us to Paris, the Republic of Georgia, upstate New York, the Upper West Side, and the corridors of the United Nations, telling stories that skewer, transform, and inspire.

Genres: Memoir, Essays, Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2018

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I chose this collection of essays/memoir blend because of the eye catching title. Originally I had placed this as a 3 star but have changed it to a 2. Although several threads of this book were fascinating, I can honestly say that I was bored to tears. I kept asking myself "Who is the writer? What does she want to tell me? What's her message? " Even though I decided to sleep on it, I am still not sure my questions are answered.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced ebook in exchange for an honest review.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Wolfson describes a translator’s most difficult task as “staying faithful when what is going on is deliberately unclear”, she addresses any writer’s task: staying clear amid many infidelities. But narrative nonfiction does stray – the genre turns, so often now, on allusive connection. Wolfson’s pleasure is her return to the through-line. She knows what she means; she says it clearly.

Her exposition of regret comes by scope and frankness – marriages (2), fallow decades, ill health, lost vocabulary. It takes living to tell these truths, and her expertise alone is a kind of relief. This is not the chimera of first love, or loss. But her accumulated tally, high and heavy, is tender. The collection’s highlight, “Infelicities of Style” is, startlingly, about mastery and ballet but turns on the mystery of great teachers’ generosity. What she is really writing about are occasions of human kindness.

Some of characters are canonical (Proust, Balanchine, Tolstoy, and Svetlana Alexievich), but many are personal, her 1st mother-in-law, an editor named Lloyd Geduldig, husband #1 (Aleksandr) and #2 (Tristan). The latter are so fully realized that I’ll struggle to think of Mr. B. without Lloyd ever again.

What else could a translator and writer want? Per Wolfson, there are two words in Hebrew for book, buch for secular texts and sefer for sacred. Thanks to her, we travel through both. It’s the best book I’ve read all year, and I’ll spend all year mailing it to friends. Will the University of Iowa Nonfiction Prize always be this good? Maybe. But in the meantime, read everything with Wolfson’s name on it.

[Bookslut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely fabulous. I am so glad I stumbled on this book. I wish she would publish a thousand books of essays, and I wish the Iowa Prize in Literary Nonfiction was still a thing (because all the winners sound excellent), and I wish every book could help me see my life from the outside as well as this one did. Many thanks to Ms. Wolfson for the navigation. She is supremely talented.

[john · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bits of magic sprinkle through this fascinating collection....the emotional content of language, the beautiful human connections in Lithuania, magical heady days in France, I was transported by turns of phrase, awed at the self-disclosure, humbled by the depth of the stories. For all of us who search for community and meaning, this is one woman's journey. Thank you Laura for inviting me along.

[Ilana · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a title that reminds the healthy Russian magical realism, this collection of essays written in an equally healthy self-irony touching upon less healthy episodes, personal and intellectual adventures in the Russian language is a journey that ends up too early. I personally would have want more word-crafted explorations, because once you are opening the box of intellectual encounter you don't want/can't stop it so fast.

Besides the personal search of meaning, the essays do have fine observations about language(s), the social and political pressures of the professional translators or dealing with hard to write or pronounce maladies. Not all of the essays are equal, but all do have episodes which contains polished worlds made of words.

In fact, for a long time I did not enjoy so much simple explorations of intellectual mussings, as the ones about reading Proust while commuting. Trivialization of a monument of the French/world literature, my mother would have judge instantly. I rather say that once you are part of the mind/intellectual games, you can see so much beauty in the act of reading Proust while commuting.

More than once, it was hard for me to accept that Laura Esther Wolfson decided completely free to learn and specialized as a translator into the Russian language, without prior strings - family, especially - attached. Therefore, her adventures in the world of language do offer a completely different perspective than in the case of someone with a certain previous connection. 'Cognition is a zero sum game (...): the additional effort required to comprehend and formulate in a foreign language is substracted from the capactiy to recall when it's over, you run a search on your recollections only to realize that the conversation has left shockingly few traces. When you leave your native language, your breathe a different substance, and like a mermaid who comes ashore, you cannot comfortably stay for long. Your native depths keep calling you home'.

Language is for her the way to take control over the reality and her identity. When she is trying to create her own Jewish story, it is through language that the deep encounter takes place, as she goes to Lithuania to learn Yiddish.

Awarded the Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction, For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors - you have to read the book to understand the meaning of this mysterious title - promises hopefully more books by Laura Esther Wolfson. Personally, I would love to read more from her soon.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

[Jenny Dunning · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this just for intriguing title, which turned out not to be that meaningful. But I'm glad I picked it up. Wolfson essays are satisfying, unshapely things, some more prose poems than essays, others more developed. She weaves together meditations on language--she's worked as a professional translator or Russian and French--marriage, illness, writing, and in the process tells the story of her interesting life, or enough of it, that you feel you know her.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laura Esther Wolfson is my literary soulmate. I've been putting off reading this book for a year or so, since it involved a long walk up to the second floor of my local library, but I would have walked to the next town for it if I'd known the extent to which I'd bond with it and with the author. This is the perfect blend of contemplation and personal experience in a very small and readable package.

I wish I'd had this quote taped to my blackboard back when I was teaching literacy and English as a second language all those years:

... grammar is the skeleton, words merely the flesh that pads it out. No one who is ignorant of the grammar of a language can claim knowledge of that language. And grammar is violent; it is about who is doing what to whom, and so it must be grasped and wrestled to the ground.

I see from her website she's currently working on another volume of essays, also with an intriguing title. I might even walk to the bookstore to buy that one. Highly recommended.

[Danielle Benich · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read this memoir because the author has the same lung disease that I do (Lymphangioleiomyomatosis or LAM). She is an excellent writer, and I found it very moving. I could feel her longing for children, her distress for failed relationships, and her frustration with her illness through the essays. She obviously didn't want her illness to be a main subject, as it was just mentioned in small bits as needed to explain life decisions. A chronic illness and the subsequent physical and financial hardships can make very real and less than ideal choices regarding life choices -- regardless of what you may have wanted in life. This I understand quite well. The only reason I didn't rate it any higher is the disjointed nature of the essays made it challenging to follow.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title, a reference to a concept in one of the essays, serves as a perfect metaphor for things not always being as they seem. Wolfson uses her keen translator's sense to explore all that is left unsaid as she digs beneath the surface in a variety of situations from romantic relationships to global travels to encounters with future Nobel Laureates. The result is this very poignant essay collection.

[Abigail Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little uneven as a collection, but because the title essay at the beginning and the three after it are so captivating, I stuck with the whole book. The essays on translation and the translated literary community are a little too inside baseball for me, but I loved the sense of place in "Climbing Montmartre" and "Proust at Rush Hour," as well as the characters in the title essay and the author's search for a Jewish identity in "The Bagels in the Snowflake" and "Haunting Synagogues."

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

cover mentions a prize for "literary nonfiction", which should have warned me away. I'm the wrong reader for the "literary" aspect of it. Occasionally interesting, evocative reflection on something like a bakery she visited in childhood, or her struggles to learn Russian to speak to her husband. Buried amidst a lot of boring [to me] overdetailed stuff like a recap of a subway ride.

[Carrie Waibel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really loved this book and its close attention to language (given that it's written by a translator, I shouldn't be surprised). I selected this book because Meghan Daum chose it to win the Iowa Writers Nonfiction prize, a fairly new accolade. Since Daum is one of my favorite writers, I figured this was a safe bet, and I wasn't wrong.

[Joan Lieberman · Rating 3 out of 5]

For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors by Laura Esther Wolfson
Laura Esther Wolfson’s essays made me think of the dotted lines in Bil Keane’s cartoon series, The Family Circus. Like Billy, Wolfson, indirectly meanders as she moves toward a topic destination, eloquently reminding readers that false starts and unplanned stops are an inevitable part of life.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laura Ester Wolfson writes about her life including her work, marriages, family, decisions, travel, living with an illness and reflections about the past. I didn't want to put this book down and found so many one-liners that I too had to reflect on. It is a series of short essays with interesting titles. Her content is relevant to all of us as we move forward. A very good read. Highly recommend!

[Joy Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book because of tge great title, which has absolutely nothing to do with the book itself, and it won the Iowa prize. Very disappointing. There are some interesting things in her stories, but I was still bored. I need to get a feel for the person - who is she? Emotions, feelings, motivations? Random different things she's done with no emotional resonance don't do it for me.

[Lanie Tankard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's my review in the July issue of the Woven Tale Press:

http://wtpcentral.thewoventalepress.n...

[Jax Gullible]

Literary telling of a life in languages. I liked it.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

***I received an ARC of this book, courtesy of the publisher. All ideas expressed are my own.***

This was a fascinating series of memoir essays. I especially liked the parts where Wolfson talked about learning to translate another writer's work. That being said, some of the essays didn't hold my attention as well, and I think this book is kind of niche--dry humor and not very happy outcomes to most situations. I'd probably recommend it for people who like academic memoirs and literary fiction.