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Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing
“I’m reading this book right now and loving it!”—Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wild
How can a mother and daughter who love (but don’t always like) each other coexist without driving each other crazy?
“Vibrating with emotion, this deeply honest account strikes a chord.”— People
“A wry and moving meditation on aging and the different kinds of love between women.”— The Oprah Magazine
After surviving a traumatic childhood in nineteen-seventies New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Connecticut with her wife of nearly twenty years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, still orbiting around her mother but keeping far enough away to preserve the stable, independent world she has built as a writer and editor. Then Elissa is confronted with the Rita, whose days are spent as a flâneur, traversing Manhattan from the Clinique counters at Bergdorf to Bloomingdale’s and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall, leaving her completely dependent upon her daughter.
Now Elissa is forced to finally confront their profound differences, Rita’s yearning for beauty and glamour, her view of the world through her days in the spotlight, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of preserving youth. To sustain their fragile mother-daughter bond, Elissa must navigate the turbulent waters of their shared lives, the practical challenges of caregiving for someone who refuses to accept it, the tentacles of narcissism, and the mutual, frenetic obsession that has defined their relationship.
Motherland is a story that touches every home and every life, mapping the ferocity of maternal love, moral obligation, the choices women make about motherhood, and the possibility of healing. Filled with tenderness, wry irreverence, and unforgettable characters, it is an exploration of what it means to escape from the shackles of the past only to have to face them all over again.
Praise for Motherland
“Rarely has a mother-daughter relationship been excavated with such honesty. Elissa Altman is a beautiful, big-hearted writer who mines her most central her gorgeous, tempestuous, difficult mother, and the terrain of their shared life. The result is a testament to the power of love and family.” —Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance
How can a mother and daughter who love (but don’t always like) each other coexist without driving each other crazy?
“Vibrating with emotion, this deeply honest account strikes a chord.”— People
“A wry and moving meditation on aging and the different kinds of love between women.”— The Oprah Magazine
After surviving a traumatic childhood in nineteen-seventies New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Connecticut with her wife of nearly twenty years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, still orbiting around her mother but keeping far enough away to preserve the stable, independent world she has built as a writer and editor. Then Elissa is confronted with the Rita, whose days are spent as a flâneur, traversing Manhattan from the Clinique counters at Bergdorf to Bloomingdale’s and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall, leaving her completely dependent upon her daughter.
Now Elissa is forced to finally confront their profound differences, Rita’s yearning for beauty and glamour, her view of the world through her days in the spotlight, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of preserving youth. To sustain their fragile mother-daughter bond, Elissa must navigate the turbulent waters of their shared lives, the practical challenges of caregiving for someone who refuses to accept it, the tentacles of narcissism, and the mutual, frenetic obsession that has defined their relationship.
Motherland is a story that touches every home and every life, mapping the ferocity of maternal love, moral obligation, the choices women make about motherhood, and the possibility of healing. Filled with tenderness, wry irreverence, and unforgettable characters, it is an exploration of what it means to escape from the shackles of the past only to have to face them all over again.
Praise for Motherland
“Rarely has a mother-daughter relationship been excavated with such honesty. Elissa Altman is a beautiful, big-hearted writer who mines her most central her gorgeous, tempestuous, difficult mother, and the terrain of their shared life. The result is a testament to the power of love and family.” —Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 6, 2019
159 people are currently reading
4355 people want to read
About the author
Elissa Altman
9 books126 followersElissa Altman is the author of Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking and the James Beard Award–winning blog of the same name and Treyf: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw. Her work has appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The New York Times, Tin House, The Rumpus, Dame Magazine, Krista Tippet's On Being, Tablet, The Forward, LitHub, Saveur, and The Washington Post, where her column, Feeding My Mother, ran for a year. Her work has been anthologized in Best Food Writing six times. A finalist for the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, Altman has taught the craft of memoir at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Loft Literary Center, 1440 Multiversity, and Ireland’s Literature and Larder Program, and has appeared live onstage at TEDx and The Public, on Heritage Radio, and on NPR’s The Splendid Table and All Things Considered. She lives in Connecticut with her family.
elissaaltman.com Facebook.com/elissa.altman Twitter: @ElissaAltman Instagram: @ elissa_altman
elissaaltman.com Facebook.com/elissa.altman Twitter: @ElissaAltman Instagram: @ elissa_altman
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
October 1, 2019
On the sentence level, this is fine. But structurally, it's repetitive and doesn't really arrive at the profound revelations all the hype suggests. Altman's mother is a horrible person. She is shallow, vain, narcissistic, childish, and cruel. And while Altman claims she's achieved independence from her mother, literally nothing in the book is evidence of that. She allows her mother to be awful and she caters to her every petty whim. The definition of dysfunctional and co-dependent. As Altman says, they're two New York, entitled, white, Jewish women who are more like spouses than like mother/daughter. The only one in this tale with any sense is Altman's wife, Susan, who sends Altman's mother back to New York when she arrives for Thanksgiving dinner and throws a tantrum because she's not the center of attention. Maybe I'm just burned out on memoirs, but the navel-gazing and self-absorption are getting to me.
April 4, 2019
Elissa Altman is the rare writer who seems to produce a gem with every sentence. Her prose is pitch-perfect and her eye for the telling detail is keen. Though her relationship with her narcissistic mother is difficult, and she's often on the receiving end of small, if not always intentional cruelties, her love and devotion to this vain and complex woman are heroic. Through it all Altman's wry humor and wit remain intact. This is a book of enormous heart and humanity. Quite simply, I loved it.
April 11, 2019
Note: Thank you to NetGalley, from whom I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Elissa Altman is a wonderful writer in the sense that with her words he enables the reader to fully picture the scenes, the people, the places about which she writes. In this case, I do feel like I know Elissa's parents, step-parents, Gaga (grandmother). I feel like I can picture both her mother's NYC apartment and Elissa's Connecticut cottage. There is no doubt, Elissa has a way with words. However... this is the second book I have read by this author and just as with the first one, I am not sure I get the point of this book. I kept waiting for the "so what?" We all have crazy mothers. I am sure I am turning into a crazy mother. But with a memoir such as this, I would expect some type of redemption or resolution or meaning drawn from the stories but to me it felt more like a few hundred pages of complaining about a narcissistic mother, and then it ends, seemingly because the writer has gotten to present day so she stops. It feels a bit self-indulgent and since she doesn't share any good, redeeming, loving memory of her mother instead of eliciting my sympathy that she might be asking for through this book, she instead brings out feelings of frustration and annoyance.
Elissa Altman is a talented writer and has a way with words - I just wish she used that talent and ability to produce books that are less for her own therapy and more for the entertainment of her readers.
Elissa Altman is a wonderful writer in the sense that with her words he enables the reader to fully picture the scenes, the people, the places about which she writes. In this case, I do feel like I know Elissa's parents, step-parents, Gaga (grandmother). I feel like I can picture both her mother's NYC apartment and Elissa's Connecticut cottage. There is no doubt, Elissa has a way with words. However... this is the second book I have read by this author and just as with the first one, I am not sure I get the point of this book. I kept waiting for the "so what?" We all have crazy mothers. I am sure I am turning into a crazy mother. But with a memoir such as this, I would expect some type of redemption or resolution or meaning drawn from the stories but to me it felt more like a few hundred pages of complaining about a narcissistic mother, and then it ends, seemingly because the writer has gotten to present day so she stops. It feels a bit self-indulgent and since she doesn't share any good, redeeming, loving memory of her mother instead of eliciting my sympathy that she might be asking for through this book, she instead brings out feelings of frustration and annoyance.
Elissa Altman is a talented writer and has a way with words - I just wish she used that talent and ability to produce books that are less for her own therapy and more for the entertainment of her readers.
September 22, 2019
Motherland is a memoir by Elissa Altman about her relationship with her mother Rita, a former television singer. She talks about her time growing up with her and the relationship she has with her now.
I have a tense relationship with my own mother and I related to a lot of what Elissa Altman wrote about in her book. There were parts that angered me, made me laugh and several that made me sad.
This is a story about how life comes full circle and how it’s not always easy to coexist with someone you may love but not always like.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and am grateful to Ballantine Books for sending it to me for an honest review.
I have a tense relationship with my own mother and I related to a lot of what Elissa Altman wrote about in her book. There were parts that angered me, made me laugh and several that made me sad.
This is a story about how life comes full circle and how it’s not always easy to coexist with someone you may love but not always like.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and am grateful to Ballantine Books for sending it to me for an honest review.
September 19, 2019
I was interested to read this book after hearing Altman speak about it on a podcast. What really piqued my curiosity was her description of her mother as a narcissist, but one who loved her.
Having a mother with similar issues, my experience has been that you can never make them happy, nothing is ever enough, and they aren't really capable of genuine love or care, so I wondered what made Altman think this.
She's certainly a good writer, but I found much of the narrative repetitive, a little rambling and quite melodramatic in parts - especially with her repeated claims that continuing to live with her mother, when she was a younger woman, would kill her. If she could tell that the relationship was harmful to that extent why continue the closeness and why is she still letting her mother press all her buttons.
It was a little tiresome watching Altman obsessively allow herself to be repeatedly reeled in on her mother's line, and there was more than a hint of self-pity. Which I get - god knows, I really do - but at some point you have to step up and save yourself.
Altman is a grown-up and strikes me as an intelligent woman, yet she seemed (and still seems) totally unable to extract herself from this co-dependent relationship and put a little emotional distance between herself and her mother, despite what must be years of therapy. She still seems to be seeking something that she will never get from the relationship - and surely her therapist has told her this.
Her wife must be a saint.
And three memoirs is probably too many - far too much navel gazing.
Having a mother with similar issues, my experience has been that you can never make them happy, nothing is ever enough, and they aren't really capable of genuine love or care, so I wondered what made Altman think this.
She's certainly a good writer, but I found much of the narrative repetitive, a little rambling and quite melodramatic in parts - especially with her repeated claims that continuing to live with her mother, when she was a younger woman, would kill her. If she could tell that the relationship was harmful to that extent why continue the closeness and why is she still letting her mother press all her buttons.
It was a little tiresome watching Altman obsessively allow herself to be repeatedly reeled in on her mother's line, and there was more than a hint of self-pity. Which I get - god knows, I really do - but at some point you have to step up and save yourself.
Altman is a grown-up and strikes me as an intelligent woman, yet she seemed (and still seems) totally unable to extract herself from this co-dependent relationship and put a little emotional distance between herself and her mother, despite what must be years of therapy. She still seems to be seeking something that she will never get from the relationship - and surely her therapist has told her this.
Her wife must be a saint.
And three memoirs is probably too many - far too much navel gazing.
March 22, 2021
A memoir by a daughter about her relationship with her mother. The mother would probably be an okay person to have as a neighbour, an arm's-length friend or a distant relative, but you wouldn't want to be her only child. She's superficial, self-involved, needy, demanding and has little respect for boundaries. She's also obsessed with her appearance and makeup, she simpers around men, and she is determined to remain sexy and thin and stylish forever. Those are her core values.
But the book is frustrating to read - not because of the ridiculous mother, but because of the daughter, who is telling the story. Why doesn't SHE have boundaries? Why does she let her mother yank her around like a puppet on a chain? Why can't she honour her own values?
When I read a memoir, I want to find a journey, progress, movement. I don't want to find someone who spent her entire life in a rut of her mother's making. She knows the relationship is unhealthy. She analyzes it constantly. But she does nothing about it. She does not make any progress.
In the Notes we learn that not only is the mother still living, but now she's living with the daughter and her wife, because of COVID. The mother is 84, the daughter is 56, her wife is 66. The mother wants to live to 103. I'd love to know if the mother has read the book.
But the book is frustrating to read - not because of the ridiculous mother, but because of the daughter, who is telling the story. Why doesn't SHE have boundaries? Why does she let her mother yank her around like a puppet on a chain? Why can't she honour her own values?
When I read a memoir, I want to find a journey, progress, movement. I don't want to find someone who spent her entire life in a rut of her mother's making. She knows the relationship is unhealthy. She analyzes it constantly. But she does nothing about it. She does not make any progress.
In the Notes we learn that not only is the mother still living, but now she's living with the daughter and her wife, because of COVID. The mother is 84, the daughter is 56, her wife is 66. The mother wants to live to 103. I'd love to know if the mother has read the book.
July 5, 2019
This memoir lays bare Elissa Altman's troubled relationship with her mother. I am from the upbringing that dictates "no one bad-mouths my mother but me", So you can listen to me complain about my mother as long as I want to rant, but you had better not chip in, because that's my mother! So, I find it difficult here to say anything about Altman's mother, but I don't have to, because I am the gentle listener to her incredibly well-written, well-articulated "rant" about her mother. But it is not a rant. It is a carefully documented and deeply analyzed, lovingly so, account of her life as her mother's daughter. I wholeheartedly recommend this memoir to readers of memoirs, to readers of exquisite prose, to readers seeking finely sculpted literary works. Thanks to Random House and netgalley for the arc of this book.
February 10, 2022
There is so much familiar to me in this memoir. OK I didn't have a former celebrity as a mother but she was Jewish and demonstrated the constant emotional blackmail seen in this book.
I remain convinced that the Jewish mother trope is indeed a thing and reading this made me hurt in all the places that Elissa did. I had less forbearance, less "understanding" and more raging about the level my small mother could hit all my buttons. My mother, like Rita, starved herself and my weight was always included in her greeting. She bought me Slimming Magazine when I was pregnant.
So, this read was painful for me. Brilliantly put together yet an emotionally flaying journey.
There could almost be a book group on Jewish matriarchy - I would nominate this book along with Nobody Will Tell You This But Me (Bess Kalb) - Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant (Roz Chast), Remind Me Who I Am Again (Linda Grant), Tender at The Bone (Ruth Reichl), Living With Mother - Right to the Very End (Michelle Hanson)
I remain convinced that the Jewish mother trope is indeed a thing and reading this made me hurt in all the places that Elissa did. I had less forbearance, less "understanding" and more raging about the level my small mother could hit all my buttons. My mother, like Rita, starved herself and my weight was always included in her greeting. She bought me Slimming Magazine when I was pregnant.
So, this read was painful for me. Brilliantly put together yet an emotionally flaying journey.
There could almost be a book group on Jewish matriarchy - I would nominate this book along with Nobody Will Tell You This But Me (Bess Kalb) - Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant (Roz Chast), Remind Me Who I Am Again (Linda Grant), Tender at The Bone (Ruth Reichl), Living With Mother - Right to the Very End (Michelle Hanson)
December 21, 2022
Fascinating study of smotheringly close mother-daughter relationship where the mother clearly had some kind of personality disorder. There was love, and the daughter had to have distance from her mother to have her own life. The mother did not make this easy.
June 16, 2019
**I received a Kindle version of this book as a Goodreads giveaway.**
As someone with her own complicated mother-daughter relationship, this book hit home. I look at others with these magical, my-mom-is-my-best-friend experiences and can't help but feel like something is missing in my own life. Like Altman, I could never completely cut the cord and will always find my mother's life intertwined with my own.
Altman's descriptions of her mom sometimes made me laugh out loud while other times cringe with empathy. I loved that her story wasn't told in a linear fashion, but instead jumped from adult to childhood to college and back, as if the book was a collection of her own therapy sessions.
It's been a long time since I've read something that felt so honest and unembellished. Altman held nothing back in this memoir and the result is an absolutely wonderful read.
As someone with her own complicated mother-daughter relationship, this book hit home. I look at others with these magical, my-mom-is-my-best-friend experiences and can't help but feel like something is missing in my own life. Like Altman, I could never completely cut the cord and will always find my mother's life intertwined with my own.
Altman's descriptions of her mom sometimes made me laugh out loud while other times cringe with empathy. I loved that her story wasn't told in a linear fashion, but instead jumped from adult to childhood to college and back, as if the book was a collection of her own therapy sessions.
It's been a long time since I've read something that felt so honest and unembellished. Altman held nothing back in this memoir and the result is an absolutely wonderful read.
June 3, 2019
Motherland is far more than just the memoir of a mother-daughter relationship. Elissa Altman’s complex story and oft-times obsessive connection to a sometimes-demonic narcissist of a mother is both an addiction in its own right; and a compulsively seductive story of passionate love, concealed rage, disappointment and a yearning for redemption. This spectacularly well written tale of profound connection is clearly a relationship that needed to be told and must be read.
March 2, 2024
“Funny, raw, and tender, Altman’s book examines the inevitable role reversals that occur in parent-child relationships while laying bare a mother-daughter relationship that is both entertaining and excruciating.”
March 21, 2020
This was like sitting and listening to someone talk to me for hours and hours about how they’re doing in their therapy. Someone I didn’t really care about. Somewhat interesting, a5 times fascinating, but for the most part I just wanted it to be over.
March 8, 2020
Not sure what I was expecting when I picked this one up. I think I was expecting lots of laughs, and there certainly were those, but it was also very poignant. This book is a memoir written by Elissa Altman who had a very difficult relationship with her mother all of her life. her mother, Rita, was a former model and singer, with an apparent addiction to Clinique make up, who seemed to be constantly disappointed that her daughter was not a little clone of herself. This lead to a relationship where Rita was constantly criticizing and trying to change Elissa to be more like her, which as you can imagine lead to a lifetime of hurt and resentments. When an older widowed Rita has a fall that requires Elissa to become her primary care giver, Elissa starts questioning why her mother is the way she is...there something she (Elissa) could have done differently? Elissa decides that she needs to “understand her better, so I can love her better while there is still time...”. She wants to change their story. It is a good reminder in the power of understanding someone else’s perspective.
September 5, 2019
I won this as a free giveaway in exchange for an honest review through good reads, compliments of the publisher. This was my first read from Elissa Altman and it surely will not be my last. The quality of her writing is astounding. I was initially outraged and furious while reading, but quickly realized that in actuality, this books is heartbreaking. I feel many reviews may reflect the subject matter and the readers’ personal feelings of Altman’s mother, which would be unfair. My star rating is a representation of her work as a storyteller and not my personal gain from the book; though I do unsterstand how some struggled with what to take away from it. I’m not certain there is anything specifically to take away, as it reads more of a therapeutic but not self pitying work. I found myself constantly mourning for Altman as the child of a narcissist, forever having love that would never be returned, as well as her mother, a woman forever grasping at love that was only vain and never true, completely blind to the unconditional love that was forever in front of her; being given without restraint or barter.
December 2, 2019
This book makes you look both critically and lovingly into your parent-child relationship. It inspires you to consider why a person behaves/lives/exists in the way that they do, and how that informs their sphere and all those who come into contact. While it is a difficult story to read, the constant yearning for a different kind of daughter or one that lives up to expectations that are from a different time and experience, the prose and pacing is timeless, the language is economical and powerful, and the story is a necessary one.
September 18, 2019
This quick book is witty and poignant. I enjoyed hearing Elissa’s perspective on the mother daughter relationship.
For my full review, please visit my blog at: http://obsessedbookaholic.com/2019/09...
Thanks NetGalley and Ballentine Books for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
For my full review, please visit my blog at: http://obsessedbookaholic.com/2019/09...
Thanks NetGalley and Ballentine Books for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
May 20, 2023
Listening to an interview with this author and the circumstances is my life put this one at the top of my list. Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down. I love how she writes even though the story is tough to take sometimes (such a difficult relationship). Now I want to read all her books. And possibly move to Connecticut so we can be neighbors?? Hmm…. :)
August 19, 2019
Elissa Altman tells the astonishing and poignant story of her troubled relationship with a narcissistic mother. It's beautifully written--alternately funny and tragic. I loved it.
September 2, 2024
This book was brutal. The writing was great.
September 13, 2020
0.5 stars.
April 10, 2024
A complex and beautiful book
I started reading this because I had grown to love Elissa Altman’s Substack and found it just as powerful. Looking forward to reading her others now.
I started reading this because I had grown to love Elissa Altman’s Substack and found it just as powerful. Looking forward to reading her others now.
August 22, 2019
After hearing Elissa Altman being interviewed by Zibby Owens for her podcast Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books (I highly recommend it if you like books), I was compelled to read Motherland to find out more about this fascinating author.
In this honest, poetic memoir, Altman catalogues her dysfunctional relationship with her mother, who was semi-famous earlier in her life. Singing on TV shows and in popular New York City clubs, Rita made it clear to her daughter throughout her life that appearances mattered more than feelings and personal growth. With a timeline that skips around from her early life in Forest Hills, Queens to her present home in Connecticut, where she lives with her wife of 20 years, Elissa uses personal anecdotes to highlight her mother's narcissistic personality and how it damaged her and all of her relationships. Though Elissa's relationship with her father is a healthier one, she loses him too early and as an only child, is burdened with taking care of her mother as she ages.
One of my favorite aspects of this memoir is its setting in New York City and its surrounding areas. She writes with such clarity about all the details that make up a New York scene, and has the ability to paint a vivid picture of each encounter she has with her mother and other family members. Although I enjoyed reading this book, I was also left with a sense of sadness because of how much hurt and abuse Elissa had to endure. I found it extremely frustrating that she did not set more boundaries for her mother, whose behavior induces guilt and shame in Elissa. At the same time I admired how much she sacrificed for her mother; her loyalty and dedication is beyond what her mother deserved at times.
In this honest, poetic memoir, Altman catalogues her dysfunctional relationship with her mother, who was semi-famous earlier in her life. Singing on TV shows and in popular New York City clubs, Rita made it clear to her daughter throughout her life that appearances mattered more than feelings and personal growth. With a timeline that skips around from her early life in Forest Hills, Queens to her present home in Connecticut, where she lives with her wife of 20 years, Elissa uses personal anecdotes to highlight her mother's narcissistic personality and how it damaged her and all of her relationships. Though Elissa's relationship with her father is a healthier one, she loses him too early and as an only child, is burdened with taking care of her mother as she ages.
One of my favorite aspects of this memoir is its setting in New York City and its surrounding areas. She writes with such clarity about all the details that make up a New York scene, and has the ability to paint a vivid picture of each encounter she has with her mother and other family members. Although I enjoyed reading this book, I was also left with a sense of sadness because of how much hurt and abuse Elissa had to endure. I found it extremely frustrating that she did not set more boundaries for her mother, whose behavior induces guilt and shame in Elissa. At the same time I admired how much she sacrificed for her mother; her loyalty and dedication is beyond what her mother deserved at times.
February 29, 2020
Well-written and exhausting. Adult daughter cares for elderly mother after a fall and recalls her history. This book has a feeling of malaise and heaviness. The author is depressed over the relationship she had with her mother. The crux of the matter is that the mother didn’t see the daughter as separate and that can be very damaging. They were enmeshed.
The mother is needy. Maybe a narcissist even though I am hesitant to use the term. I also dislike the word damaged, although you can see where the mother was affected by her father’s very odd and hurtful behavior when it came to physical beauty. You can understand why the mother is needy or has a desire to be considered beautiful. The mother didn’t like to eat and had major food issues. That can be disturbing. Kids want their parents to be healthy and “normal”.
You can also see how the author (as an adult) contributes to the dysfunction. On occasions it appeared that the mother wished to connect without an agenda, still the daughter is wary and defensive. The author is skilled and shows this without telling. The author seems to have some understanding of why the mother behaves as she does but still seems wounded. Still blaming.
Yes the mother had boundary issues. She was annoying and relentless at times. However, a few incidents had me wondering why the author was so disturbed when the mother’s actions weren’t that bad or could be ignored. It was never personal. Of course it’s not so easy to be detached. Of course there will be pain and defensiveness.
A few things bugged me— the idea of accumulating a lot of beauty products as pathological. The cosmetics industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s not unusual to succumb to marketing and societal expectations of beauty. Also nurses’ aids don’t administer medications in hospitals. There were other times in the book where I thought the author took liberties or exaggerated. I could be wrong of course. Listened on audio. Author narrates. Good narration.
The mother is needy. Maybe a narcissist even though I am hesitant to use the term. I also dislike the word damaged, although you can see where the mother was affected by her father’s very odd and hurtful behavior when it came to physical beauty. You can understand why the mother is needy or has a desire to be considered beautiful. The mother didn’t like to eat and had major food issues. That can be disturbing. Kids want their parents to be healthy and “normal”.
You can also see how the author (as an adult) contributes to the dysfunction. On occasions it appeared that the mother wished to connect without an agenda, still the daughter is wary and defensive. The author is skilled and shows this without telling. The author seems to have some understanding of why the mother behaves as she does but still seems wounded. Still blaming.
Yes the mother had boundary issues. She was annoying and relentless at times. However, a few incidents had me wondering why the author was so disturbed when the mother’s actions weren’t that bad or could be ignored. It was never personal. Of course it’s not so easy to be detached. Of course there will be pain and defensiveness.
A few things bugged me— the idea of accumulating a lot of beauty products as pathological. The cosmetics industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s not unusual to succumb to marketing and societal expectations of beauty. Also nurses’ aids don’t administer medications in hospitals. There were other times in the book where I thought the author took liberties or exaggerated. I could be wrong of course. Listened on audio. Author narrates. Good narration.
November 4, 2019
My dad and I read this book together when I was in town visiting him over a long weekend. It inspired a lot of great conversations about our family, because his father, my grandfather, was married to Rita. Ben in the book, Buddy in real life, it was really interesting to read a story that intersected with my own family's story.
I was just a child at the time they were married, but their relationship and the fallout with my dad and his sisters is a big part of my family's story. One of my favorite parts was reading about how much Elissa loved my grandfather, who truly was a wonderful man.
The book gives an honest and unapologetic look inside what I think the author would admit is an unhealthy mother-daughter relationship, with a woman who craves constant attention.
It's also an interesting look at how mother-daughter relationships evolve over time—starting with a daughter being dependent and craving her mother's attention, the grown up years where most children distance themselves to form their own life and family, and when it comes full circle and the parent relies on the daughter.
A fascinating read.
I was just a child at the time they were married, but their relationship and the fallout with my dad and his sisters is a big part of my family's story. One of my favorite parts was reading about how much Elissa loved my grandfather, who truly was a wonderful man.
The book gives an honest and unapologetic look inside what I think the author would admit is an unhealthy mother-daughter relationship, with a woman who craves constant attention.
It's also an interesting look at how mother-daughter relationships evolve over time—starting with a daughter being dependent and craving her mother's attention, the grown up years where most children distance themselves to form their own life and family, and when it comes full circle and the parent relies on the daughter.
A fascinating read.
December 19, 2025
Beautiful writing and continued revisitation to the themes. It's clear Elissa loves her mother, but her vulnerable writing about her and her mother gave me visceral reactions.
July 28, 2019
I won an ARC of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
I ended up not finishing this book because of the writing style. I loved the topic, but the way it was written felt like it was trying too hard. The author used a lot of fancy words, but she didn't really say much.
I ended up not finishing this book because of the writing style. I loved the topic, but the way it was written felt like it was trying too hard. The author used a lot of fancy words, but she didn't really say much.
September 5, 2019
This author’s mother is an insufferable maniac who is only capable of loving herself and asking for attention. There, that’s the whole book.
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September 18, 2023"A serious athlete in my younger years, I habitually pushed my body to the point of collapse in order to free it from the constraints of psychic ownership and claim, to remind it that it belonged to nothing and no one but its actual owner."
"Susan and I are drawn to the fury and the calm of Maine, to the granite beach and the metal sky, and the straight-lined vernacular of assurance."
"When Susan's mother died a few days before her ninety-fifth birthday, we shifted our gaze even farther north, to where the water was colder, the residents more taciturn, and life more challenging."
"Prone to severe anxiety, she was the daughter of a subsistence farmer and a stalwart, chary New Englander morally opposed to frivolity or excess of any kind."
"Famous: Doris Lessing walks out on her two eldest children and husband in Rhodesia and moves to London so that she can have a literary career, believing that motherhood and the making of art are mutually exclusive."
"Every holiday my mother says 'Just make a reservation' and I say 'No, I want my family around my table.' I am convinced of it: Our table--handmade by a local craftsman from three-hundred-fifty-year-old New Hampshire wormy maple barnwood, and alive with history--will save us. ... Peace will be ours.
"Living out my Rockwellian Thanksgiving fantasy, I corral every stray person I know to avoid having it be the three of us--me, Susan, my mother--because just the three of us is grim. Three of us might as well be watching the parade in front of the television and eating Swanson's frozen turkey dinners with the little apple crisp in the middle of the aluminum tray.'Three of us' is my culinary PTSD trigger."
"When the bill for dinner arrives, I become the man; I palm over my credit card without looking at it, just as Ben would have done."
"When my mother goes to bed, I busy myself the way I always do on visits: I hunt for evidence of us, a trail of crumbs that will lead us to where we are now. I look for images of our past, proof of existence, glimmers of affection."
"I ran my fingers along the narrow, tortured body of Jesus from his feet to his crown of thorns. I gave them back to her.
"Do you wear them?" I asked. "Like a necklace?"
"No," she said, "I don't think so. We're Jews--"
"So why did you buy them?"
"For luck," she shrugged. "Because everyone needs a little luck. I need a little luck."
...
Years later, a huge laughing Buddha...
When her neighbor came back from a trip to Israel, she brought my mother a massive mezuzah to affix to her front door; the size of a box of Tiparillos and the color of bone..."
"I see you here all the time," she told me. "Your mother is a very beautiful woman. It's clear how much you love each other."
"I wish I could do for her what you do for yours," I said. "I hate this."
"Everyone hates this," she said. "I hate everything about it. But when it's my turn, my children will do the same for me. And yours will do the same for you."
"But my mother was as divorced from the workings of her own body, and from who and what she was carrying in her womb, as an amputated limb. Over the years, the disconnect will repeat like a loop: She will have kidney stones and not know it, cystoscopes and colonoscopies without sedation, stitches around her eye without lidocaine, an explosive ankle fracture and want a single white Tylenol. She will carry a growing baby in her belly--another life; a life inside a life, nestled like a Matryoshka doll--for six months and not know."
"My mother is a keeper of things, a hoarder of our life together; the sight and fact of them steady and guide her, and when she's having a bad morning, she reviews them, as if taking an inventory of experience. They are proof that we are mother and daughter, that I was once a child utterly dependent upon her."
"Susan and I are drawn to the fury and the calm of Maine, to the granite beach and the metal sky, and the straight-lined vernacular of assurance."
"When Susan's mother died a few days before her ninety-fifth birthday, we shifted our gaze even farther north, to where the water was colder, the residents more taciturn, and life more challenging."
"Prone to severe anxiety, she was the daughter of a subsistence farmer and a stalwart, chary New Englander morally opposed to frivolity or excess of any kind."
"Famous: Doris Lessing walks out on her two eldest children and husband in Rhodesia and moves to London so that she can have a literary career, believing that motherhood and the making of art are mutually exclusive."
"Every holiday my mother says 'Just make a reservation' and I say 'No, I want my family around my table.' I am convinced of it: Our table--handmade by a local craftsman from three-hundred-fifty-year-old New Hampshire wormy maple barnwood, and alive with history--will save us. ... Peace will be ours.
"Living out my Rockwellian Thanksgiving fantasy, I corral every stray person I know to avoid having it be the three of us--me, Susan, my mother--because just the three of us is grim. Three of us might as well be watching the parade in front of the television and eating Swanson's frozen turkey dinners with the little apple crisp in the middle of the aluminum tray.'Three of us' is my culinary PTSD trigger."
"When the bill for dinner arrives, I become the man; I palm over my credit card without looking at it, just as Ben would have done."
"When my mother goes to bed, I busy myself the way I always do on visits: I hunt for evidence of us, a trail of crumbs that will lead us to where we are now. I look for images of our past, proof of existence, glimmers of affection."
"I ran my fingers along the narrow, tortured body of Jesus from his feet to his crown of thorns. I gave them back to her.
"Do you wear them?" I asked. "Like a necklace?"
"No," she said, "I don't think so. We're Jews--"
"So why did you buy them?"
"For luck," she shrugged. "Because everyone needs a little luck. I need a little luck."
...
Years later, a huge laughing Buddha...
When her neighbor came back from a trip to Israel, she brought my mother a massive mezuzah to affix to her front door; the size of a box of Tiparillos and the color of bone..."
"I see you here all the time," she told me. "Your mother is a very beautiful woman. It's clear how much you love each other."
"I wish I could do for her what you do for yours," I said. "I hate this."
"Everyone hates this," she said. "I hate everything about it. But when it's my turn, my children will do the same for me. And yours will do the same for you."
"But my mother was as divorced from the workings of her own body, and from who and what she was carrying in her womb, as an amputated limb. Over the years, the disconnect will repeat like a loop: She will have kidney stones and not know it, cystoscopes and colonoscopies without sedation, stitches around her eye without lidocaine, an explosive ankle fracture and want a single white Tylenol. She will carry a growing baby in her belly--another life; a life inside a life, nestled like a Matryoshka doll--for six months and not know."
"My mother is a keeper of things, a hoarder of our life together; the sight and fact of them steady and guide her, and when she's having a bad morning, she reviews them, as if taking an inventory of experience. They are proof that we are mother and daughter, that I was once a child utterly dependent upon her."
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