The Things Between Us: A Memoir

by Lee Montgomery

An executive editor for Tin House magazine describes how her fragmented New England family overcame alcohol-related obstacles and was reunited by her gentleman farmer father's battle with stomach cancer. 30,000 first printing.

Genres: Memoir, Biography Memoir, Family, Nonfiction, Biography

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Lee Montgomery is the author of The Things Between Us, A Memoir (Free Press, August 2006), Whose World Is This? Stories (University of Iowa Press, September 2007), and Searching for Emily: Illustrated (Nothing Moments Press, October 2007). The Things Between Us received the 2007 Oregon Book Award in creative nonfiction and Whose World Is This? the 2007 John Simmons Iowa Short Fiction Award.

She has an undergraduate degree in Biology from Antioch College and an MFA in creative writing from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. She was the fiction editor at the Iowa Review, the editor of the Santa Monica Review, and editor of Transgressions: The Iowa Anthology of Innovative Fiction (University of Iowa Press), Absolute Disaster: Fiction from Los Angeles (Dove Books), and the upcoming Woof! Writers on Dogs (Viking Penguin, September 2008).

Montgomery's fiction has appeared in Black Clock, Iowa Review, Denver Quarterly, Story Magazine, Black River Review, the Santa Monica Review and the Antioch Review. Nonfiction has been published in Alaska Quarterly, the American Book Review, Boston Magazine, Travel Holiday, 'Scape, The Hollywood Reporter, Tin House, Paris Passion, Boston Phoenix, the Oregonian, Willamette Week New England Monthly, the Antioch Review and the anthology The Honeymoon is Over (January 2007, Warner Books). Whose World is This? was also nominated for the 2008 Ken Kesey Award in Fiction.

She is the editorial director of Tin House Books and the executive editor for Tin House magazine. She lives with her husband and their two bizarre dogs in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

[Darlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir by Lee Montgomery was one of the most raw... most honest stories I have read in a long time. Her memoir begins with her return to her native New England to help her parents cope with her father's stomach cancer diagnosis. Her story alternates between the past and the present and through her very honest self-examination, we travel with her through the very complicated relationships which always exist in families... especially families where one of the members is an alcoholic. Her memories of her childhood jump back and forth between her mother, who because of her alcoholism, was often unreliable and irresponsible and her often enabling father, who she adored and emulated but had to admit that she also felt anger towards.

Ms. Montgomery's story was a difficult one to read. she was brutally honest in her recollections and her descriptions of her childhood and what was currently happening with the illness and subsequent death of her father. What made this story so readable though was her wonderful sense of humor. Despite the trauma of everything she had experienced and the heartbreak of watching her father die, she managed to find the absurdity which is always present in everyday life.

I could not put this book down. Ms. Montgomery wrote her story in such a way that I came to care about her family members and I wanted to know how it all turned out. Her story is a courageous one. She learned to accept her gamily members for who they are. And she ultimately discovered how to keep her father close to her heart while having to let him go. Her story is ultimately a very uplifting and hopeful one and it teaches about the complexity of family relationships.

[Kimberly Calhoun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartfelt memoir about a fathers dying and death from cancer and the family’s inability to cope well. (Especially the mother) Lee inserts lots of sweet and funny memories that help you get to know her dad and family.

[Candace · Rating 2 out of 5]

It makes me said that I have to give such a bad review for a memoir, but it has to be done. I couldn't truely get into it until half way through the book. There was 220 pgs. and it wasn't until about pg 100 did the writting style start to get better, and able to follow. For the first 100 pgs she was going back and forth between past and present without any warning that she was having a flashback. At which point I had to reread parts in order to understand what was going on. She would go into too much detail about insignificant things. Which after pondering this for a little while I came to the conclusion that this type of spaciness and attention to the small meaningless details was as a product of her family life growing up, a way for her to "float away" and not pay attention to the problems that are waiting for her at her home. However if that is the case then we really don't need that sort of visual all the time to understand that she was miserable, we can move on to other things that are going to make you want to read the book.

Once I got passed the 100 pg mark, it was like a cloud was lifted and I could read this book like any other normal book. The writting style wasn't so sporadic and the content got more interesting. Of course by this point her father had begun his cancer treatments and what not, which made it very difficult at parts to read beacuse it was depressing that her father was dying.

I was very happy when I finished the book because now I don't have to concentrate on death anymore, and I can move onto a better book. Because the middle to end of the book got better I would give it 2 1/2 stars out of 5. There are many people that told me that they wouldn't have gotten that far to find out that it was going to pick up and that I should have started another book if I wasn't enjoying it. But I was determained to finish it. But i geuss this will teach me a lesson not to buy books that have been marked down so much that they are 1/2 off the mark down also! I can't wait to see how the other one turns out that I bought that day!

So if you feel you need to punish yourself for some wrong doing ... you can read this book and I think that will be punishment enough!

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Things Between Is was billed as an addition to the "drunken mothers" genre. And it was, sort of. But the real story is how an adult child deals with her father's descent toward death. The drunken mom is present -- both in the "now" and in the flashbacks to childhood -- but she's not the central story. (A Q&A with the author even talks about how her mom hijacked the book -- right down to every review and her photo on the cover.)

I expected Things to be a painful read, and it wasn't, at all -- neither the stories of the callous and selfish mom nor the father's falling apart were tearjerkers. And I appreciated that.

But it ended up that neither meant too much to me, either.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've ever had a parent die of cancer, this book will really hit home. Funny, irreverent, touching, and, at times, profane; free-spirited Lee Montgomery takes us through diagnosis, treatment, hospice, and, ultimately, the passing of her beloved father, all while reminiscing about her crazy, mixed-up years with her alcoholic mother, her gardening dad, and her older brother and sister. A very well-written memoir; descriptive and vivid and highly engaging. You'll be left with a deeper appreciation for fireflies, daisies, the small moments which life unexpectedly gifts to us, and gin.

[Serena · Rating 2 out of 5]

really searching for reasons to actually finish this book. it seems remarkably unspecial to me--not that it's badly written, but it's very unfocused...nor is it actually about the things it purports to be. i can't see trying to buy this as an editor and actually getting past the review board. perhaps standards have changed...perhaps i need to finish it.

[Mary Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a writer who demands to be read. If I knew what this book was about ahead of time I may not have read it, and I would have lost out. It made me think of like experiences I had and I saw them with a new perspective. I'd like to read this book again after some years have elapsed, because I'll need the reminder.

[michele kemper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I have read this year!

So well written that I could not stop reading the life story. It is a must read for every person that cares about family. It is not a story about death it is all about life! Great read, Lee Montgomery!

[Molly McGeehin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dysfunctional family - death, alcoholism

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging and interesting, but at times, oversimplified. Still, a good read.

[Shari · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should really go on my "tried to read it but couldn't make it through" shelf. I got about halfway through. I ultimately found the subject matter too difficult; I am getting ready to move about 500 miles away from my parents, and reading what it's like for someone when their father is dying just isn't my cup of tea right now, and probably not ever.

But I would also say that this book just wasn't gripping. I've read books with difficult subject matter before, and when the story pulls you in, you can't help but go along for the ride. This felt a little tedious and, to be honest, a little self-indulgent of the author. She clearly relishes the memory of herself as young and adventurous, and her memories of her younger days only serve to highlight how little she's grown since then. She still seems to want to come home and be a child, despite having an alcoholic mother and a father on his deathbed. I suppose this is ultimetly a coming-of-age memoir, though she is long past the time she SHOULD have come of age.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until I lost a parent I could not feel death. Yet death came at me with all the 'fear'ocity of a room filled with savages tearing through my memories. Wounds opening the doors long closed and shutting off the hurtful pain too long carried. Losing my dad was monumental and soon it's my turn to lose my mom. I can't find a way to be ready.

Lee Montgomery had such a close and loving relationship with her dad. Yet she broke away, disappointment on both sides. She returned, full of love, memories and the strength to share his death. Gifts and lessons on all sides. Accepting that death is coming isn't for the faint of heart. In helping me accept his death my dad gave me a strength I did not know that I had ever had. Love you dad, still.

The mom in this story is harder for me to understand. But their love is not. I understand.

Worth the read.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up looking for something lighter than my usual fare (memoirs & other non-fiction re: cancer, buddhism, hitting bottom & surviving the unthinkable). It's packaged as a dysfunctional family memoir with an emphasis on the drunk mother, but it's really a book about an adult daughter coping with the death of her father from cancer. Yes, the family is dysfunctional, yes the mother is drunk all the time, but that's not what the story is about at its core. For me, this book is about the ways in which we love people that might not make sense to others, and the process of losing such a person. It didn't turn out to be what I thought I was looking for, but it was absolutely what I was meant to read.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lee Montgomery is absolutely brilliant in balancing truth/perception, anger/understanding, wisdom/emotional trauma in her memoir. She is a personal friend of ours--but you too will know her well after reading about her family.

"Here is an excerpt from the publisher's notes:
Montgomery's stunning memoir vividly evokes the often unspoken bonds between family members -- bonds made of memory, love, and disappointment. Heartbreaking, lyrical, and frequently hilarious, "The Things Between Us" hums with a sense of wonder as the author discovers anew the most familiar people in her life, herself among them."

[Colleen Wainwright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of weirdly billed as an alcoholic-mother memoir, this is really more the sad and incredibly detailed story of a beloved father's death from cancer. Of course, Drunk Mom figures greatly in the story, as by the time Dad is diagnosed, the household is so dysfunctional that the siblings have fled and scattered, and there is a coming-together despite and because of past shared sadness. More than anything, it's the story of how hiding and pushing away and neglect foster alienation: between family members, between survivors and everyone they try to have relationships with, and between a human being and his own mortality.

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was written with honesty, and it was an interesting look into one episode of this writer's life. I got the feeling there was much more the author could have said, but she stayed on topic instead. Not the kind of book you just can't put down but not the kind of book you can't even finish either.

[T.K. Greenleaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book, especially since I'm an ex-pat New Englander. Montgomery writes with such a compelling sense of place that her characters are infused with it. They could not exist anywhere else. A beautiful, sad and wise story that will resonate with anyone who is facing the death of parents with whom they had troubled relationships.

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was good, but very hard to read. It made me very emotional to think about my parents ever passing. I don't recommend this if you don't want to confront these issues or have to use a hanky while you read!

[Jobie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good if you're into the "My father is dying of cancer" books.
Seriously, I got about halfway through and then skimmed the rest. Tough subject matter. Quotable. And that Mom! Man! She reminds me of my grandmother, Toots.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoir is not my preferred genre, and with so much great fiction on my to-read list, I rarely read more than 1 memoir a year. With that said this is highest rated memoir on my list - I highly recommend it. For myself, I tore through it finding it engaging and true.

[Featherbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written, sad family story of the cancer death of author's beloved father and the reactions & recollections of other family members, including her long-drunk mother, clutching a mayo jar of gin & mint as she shuffles along on her purple walker, singing her heart out.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a great read, but a good one--it is about the author facing the death of her beloved father, with her alcoholic mother in the background wringing her hand, and in the mix her beautiful, somewhat detached sister, and her analytical brother.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of the memoirs of ordinary people from dysfunctional families and while this is not A Girl Called Zippy or The Glass Castle, it was a good beach read

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good memoir- explores seeing your parents as "people" versus just parents-I cried

[Micaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

A humorous and endlessly quotable memoir, despite its seemingly-depressing subject matter. It had me rolling on the floor with laughter at certain points.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hiding problems is never the best way to deal.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

True story about a woman who returns home to help her father dying of cancer amidst the drama of her alcoholic mother. Decent read, but not a memorable read for me.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Montgomery grew up in Framingham around the same time I did...familiar places, and happenings...

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Downright depressing, but I stayed with it.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touching, sad story of a woman losing her father to cancer. Not your run of the mill dysfunctional family memoir.