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The Rye Bread Marriage: How I Found Happiness with a Partner I’ll Never Understand
How do partners in long-lasting relationships live together without driving each other up a wall? After forty years of marriage, Michaele Weissman has a few answers.
When they first meet, John— a dashing European, a Latvian refugee, a physics PhD—is hoping to settle down. Michaele, a fast-talking American college student, is hungry for an independent life as a writer and historian. “I am too young, and you are too Latvian,” the twenty-year-old Michaele tells the twenty-eight-year-old John, explaining why she is ending their four-month romance.
Fifteen years later, the two are married. Their love for each other does not assuage the trauma John experienced as a child during World War II; nor does it help Michaele understand her husband’s unwavering devotion to every aspect of Latvian culture, particularly his passion for the dark, intense rye bread of his birthplace (nothing like the rye she knew growing up in her secular Jewish household).
Michaele feels like an outsider in her own relationship, unable to touch a core piece of her husband’s being. So, as John realizes his dream of opening a rye bread bakery, Michaele embarks on a fascinating journey. Delving into history and traveling across Europe with John, she excavates poignant stories of war, privation, and resilience—and realizes at last that rye bread represents everything about John’s homeland that he loved and lost. Eventually Michaele even comes to love rye bread, too.
How do the stories we live and the stories we inherit play out in our relationships? How do individuals learn to tolerate ethnic, religious, and national differences? The Rye Bread Marriage is a beautifully told, often humorous, love story about the messiness of spending a lifetime with another human being. Michaele Weissman reminds us that every relationship is a mystery—and a miracle.
When they first meet, John— a dashing European, a Latvian refugee, a physics PhD—is hoping to settle down. Michaele, a fast-talking American college student, is hungry for an independent life as a writer and historian. “I am too young, and you are too Latvian,” the twenty-year-old Michaele tells the twenty-eight-year-old John, explaining why she is ending their four-month romance.
Fifteen years later, the two are married. Their love for each other does not assuage the trauma John experienced as a child during World War II; nor does it help Michaele understand her husband’s unwavering devotion to every aspect of Latvian culture, particularly his passion for the dark, intense rye bread of his birthplace (nothing like the rye she knew growing up in her secular Jewish household).
Michaele feels like an outsider in her own relationship, unable to touch a core piece of her husband’s being. So, as John realizes his dream of opening a rye bread bakery, Michaele embarks on a fascinating journey. Delving into history and traveling across Europe with John, she excavates poignant stories of war, privation, and resilience—and realizes at last that rye bread represents everything about John’s homeland that he loved and lost. Eventually Michaele even comes to love rye bread, too.
How do the stories we live and the stories we inherit play out in our relationships? How do individuals learn to tolerate ethnic, religious, and national differences? The Rye Bread Marriage is a beautifully told, often humorous, love story about the messiness of spending a lifetime with another human being. Michaele Weissman reminds us that every relationship is a mystery—and a miracle.
278 pages, Hardcover
Published August 15, 2023
38 people are currently reading
4176 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
September 1, 2023
I thought this would be an interesting book about how a couple who are very different come together for a happy marriage. Opposites attract right? But, right away I just didn't like the author. It seems like she ignored a lot of red flags in order to get in and stay in the relationship. Her husband might be a great guy but he's bipolar, experienced a lot of trauma growing up as a child in WWII, and is extremely connected to his Latvian heritage (not a problem, but the Latvian community seems to hate that both of his wives were American and cause drama at every turn with the author). In the first section there was a scene when they had a big fight and the author slapped him and then he slapped her back - I was pretty much done then. Physical violence is NEVER OK and it seemed like she just glossed over that whole scene and moved on. I honestly didn't want to read any more about these people after the first section and honestly I'm surprised they're still married. I also hate how the book is organized - no chapters just weird numbered sections in three larger sections. I would not recommend this one at all.
October 15, 2023
I'm not sure what I expected when I started reading this book. But, I am sure that what I read was not anywhere on my horizon.
I think my expectations were that it would be about a mixed marriage. He is a Latvian refugee, she is an American-born Jew. Two very different cultures. I thought it would be about the cultures and customs of each, coming together (with a few clashes) with the best of both being the result.
Rye bread is not just the bread that Latvians prefer to eat. It is their comfort food, the food from their homeland. I am the youngest child of Latvian parents who were Latvian immigrants. Rye bread was the preferred bread for many years in our house but as my parents assimilated, they were open to trying anything. It was never a manic obsession as it is portrayed in the book.
The author takes the time to describe the oppression and hardships of the Latvian people and the effect on future generations. Maybe a bit too much information, it was very dry.
The writing style is totally different from anything that I am used to. The are no chapters. Just numbered sections of what often appears to be random thoughts. It is often very disjointed. Some of the sections are only 3 lines. Some go on for pages. It lacked continuity.
The best part to me is when the author talks about starting the research and the bakery for rye bread. It is interesting and informative.
But, sadly, the rest of the book for me is just “ok”.
I think my expectations were that it would be about a mixed marriage. He is a Latvian refugee, she is an American-born Jew. Two very different cultures. I thought it would be about the cultures and customs of each, coming together (with a few clashes) with the best of both being the result.
Rye bread is not just the bread that Latvians prefer to eat. It is their comfort food, the food from their homeland. I am the youngest child of Latvian parents who were Latvian immigrants. Rye bread was the preferred bread for many years in our house but as my parents assimilated, they were open to trying anything. It was never a manic obsession as it is portrayed in the book.
The author takes the time to describe the oppression and hardships of the Latvian people and the effect on future generations. Maybe a bit too much information, it was very dry.
The writing style is totally different from anything that I am used to. The are no chapters. Just numbered sections of what often appears to be random thoughts. It is often very disjointed. Some of the sections are only 3 lines. Some go on for pages. It lacked continuity.
The best part to me is when the author talks about starting the research and the bakery for rye bread. It is interesting and informative.
But, sadly, the rest of the book for me is just “ok”.
August 22, 2023
This is an interesting story about a marriage to a Latvian refugee that was displaced during WWII and the life long impacts of people adrift and the loss of a homeland and the horrific memories made in formative years.
This memoir is somewhat unfocused but I didn’t mind it much. At the end she mentions her stepdaughter Sarma Mengalisis’s scandal but it’s such an afterthought I really don’t know why she mentioned it here.
At times the story of her marriage is told from far away and without feeling which is interesting considering she is often exploring her husbands bipolar disease that is likely caused by his formative experiences.
What I felt the entire time and ended feeling was that yes marriage is a compromise but that Weissman still seems unmoored inside this marriage and overpowered by John. Not that I’m here to judge that, but it’s just a sense that seems imposed on the reader so it’s hard to overlook.
I love the history of John’s family story and how rye bread takes on a new meaning for them both throughout their marriage and an interesting perspective of how even inside the safety of a marriage someone can feel “othered” by the divide of language and land.
This memoir is somewhat unfocused but I didn’t mind it much. At the end she mentions her stepdaughter Sarma Mengalisis’s scandal but it’s such an afterthought I really don’t know why she mentioned it here.
At times the story of her marriage is told from far away and without feeling which is interesting considering she is often exploring her husbands bipolar disease that is likely caused by his formative experiences.
What I felt the entire time and ended feeling was that yes marriage is a compromise but that Weissman still seems unmoored inside this marriage and overpowered by John. Not that I’m here to judge that, but it’s just a sense that seems imposed on the reader so it’s hard to overlook.
I love the history of John’s family story and how rye bread takes on a new meaning for them both throughout their marriage and an interesting perspective of how even inside the safety of a marriage someone can feel “othered” by the divide of language and land.
July 24, 2023
I love to bake and I love to learn about different cultures coming together in relationships; marriage, friendships, neighbors. But I found this story to be dry and uninviting. It wasn't stale, it just wasn't tasty.
January 4, 2024
Really interesting to hear about WWII Latvian history. I was inspired to buy bread from her husband's company after reading the book. Her husband's passion for rye bread is deeply moving and rich with history.
2023
October 21, 2025Memoir March TBR
Non-fiction November TBR
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books
Non-fiction November TBR
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books
October 25, 2023
As a second generation Latvian-American, I was so excited to read this book and see my family history reflected in a public forum when I so seldom do, and the parts about Latvian history and the Latvian expatriate experience were interesting to read about, but where this story lost me is in the author’s broad generalizations about the Latvian expatriate experience and about marriage that I found frequently completely unrelatable; has it never occurred to the author that just perhaps the experiences she describes are just the experiences of her marriage and just the experiences and reactions of her individual husband? Perhaps positioning her marriage as if her experiences are common to all marriages, and her husband’s experiences as a Latvian expatriate as defining all Latvian expatriate experiences, makes her feel better about her tumultuous marriage to a flawed and individually complicated man, but it grated me that she painted marriage and the Latvian expatriate experience with such a broad brush.
March 22, 2024
I picked this up very randomly because I’ve been thinking a lot about the Institution of Marriage recently. I enjoyed it but am not sure I would recommend it to someone else, for the same reasons as other reviewers, and the fact that the author’s voice is sometimes eye-roll levels of pretentious. I’m glad to be done with it
December 18, 2024
Engaging at times, funny at times, but overall just a so so read. Even though this is a memoir, the characters really didn’t come alive. My favorite parts were about the making and marketing of the special Latvian rye bread. I’ll look forward to tasting it when I travel to Latvia next fall! Okay audio narration by the author.
November 23, 2023
Listened to the audio book. Overall would rate it 3.5 ⭐️.
The first half of the book was rather slow and didn’t really grab my attention. I found the second half so much better and really wanted to learn more about how Black Rooster Foods grew and the overall Latvian rye bread market.
The first half of the book was rather slow and didn’t really grab my attention. I found the second half so much better and really wanted to learn more about how Black Rooster Foods grew and the overall Latvian rye bread market.
September 1, 2025
4.5/5 - I enjoyed reading about my culture from another person’s perspective. I can relate to so much from my upbringing which I loved. At some points I thought the author was unlikeable but she wrapped the story up very nicely. A lovely read!
March 28, 2024
This was okay. The author is doing A LOT here-it's a memoir of her marriage to a Latvian man for the first half, told through short chapters. It's more like reminiscing. Then the second half is about the history of bread (specifically rye), the history of Latvia (her husband's family story), and the history of Jews in Eastern Europe. She intersperses her trips to Europe to study bread making and the families' cultures. I liked this, but wish it was focused on less. Thanks to Netgalley for my review copy in return for my honest review.
December 22, 2023
What an interesting book written, as Grace Paley once said "to save a few lives". There's every detail about rye bread - how it is made in different localities, how it can be preserved for years, an ancestor selling it in Soviet Latvia under the table like moonshine, a "grass like no other: able to grow in frigid temperatures and poor soil, amid cycles of drought and drench". But the purpose was to write of Weissman's husband's family story. Her Latvian husband eschews Christianity (I had just read in my Atlas of Central Europe of how late in the game the Latvians were forced into Christianity), and mentions how displacement as a child or childhood trauma can be linked to bipolar disorder. There are historical wonders like the Malians who, as members of the French forces, conquered a part of Germany, and the history of Latvia's Russian takeover, settling of Russians there, and German WW2 invasion reminiscent of what I read in Kutznetsov's documentary Babi Yar (in the paper the day I read that part was a story about Latvians fearful of these historical Russian settlers lest Russia use them as an excuse to invade again). One of her vignettes is titled "What is not known cannot be remembered" about how poorly people remember the past. Later in the book when tackling the experience of Jews in the Baltic area in the 20th century, she believes tabula rasa is a delusion; we are all imprinted by the "wounds - and the occasional wonders - of the past" and dislikes the "assumption of enmity" on the part of a man she meets in New York City who distrusts her mixed marriage. Her husband has fond memories of postwar Germany "where quality materials and small artistic gestures were treasured and past privations were never far from mind" and Weissman credits German immigrants, not the Jews who came later, with introducing rye bread to the US. This part of the book was most intense for me, especially as Gaza was burning in the news. The books Weissman cites and recommends were all tantalizing to me. In one, Weissman mentions the hatred of the Nazis that causes one Lucy Dawidowicz to feel joy at the destruction of German noncombatants during Allied carpet bombing: "Her naked hatred - an eyewitness's response to history - humbled me". The choices people made in an area where the overlords changed so often. Who felt superior to others. Some denounced their neighbors, some ignored their neighbors, a few courageously hid their neighbors threatened with death or exile to Siberia. All this history tried to impact Weissman's marriage, but it seems, ultimately failed.
June 6, 2025
I should have stopped after the husband hit his wife and she respected him more for it? but I really had to stop when it started with the “yeah the nazis were bad but what about the Russians” propaganda, Even going as far as being thankful for the efficiency of German trains during WW2! This book was made solely to portray Russia in a negative light and to sell her husband‘s rye bread business
April 8, 2023
Synopsis: (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review)
*********************************************************
A beautifully told, often humorous, unusual and also universal love story. A memoir about learning to live with another human being and about how every relationship is a mystery—and a miracle.
When they first meet, John, a dashing European, a Latvian refugee, and a physics Ph.D., is hoping to settle down. A fast-talking American college student, Michaele is hungry for an independent life as a writer and historian. When they meet again some years later, Michaele is ready. Or so she thinks. And opposites attract, right?
The life Michaele and John build together intermingles sweetness—their love of good food, entertaining, and family—with complications, including their ethnic and religious differences (Michaele is Jewish; John is not), the trauma John endured as a child during WWII, Michaele’s thwarted ambitions, and even John’s preoccupation with Latvian rye. When he opens a successful company marketing rye bread, Michaele embarks on a European journey in search of her husband’s origins, excavating poignant stories of war, privation, and resilience. She realizes at last that rye bread represents everything about John’s homeland that he loved and lost. Eventually, Michaele comes to love rye bread, too.
An enticing memoir for readers of Dani Shapiro’s Hourglass, Bess Kalb’s Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, and Heather Havrilesky’s Foreverland, The Rye Bread Marriage asks, how do the stories we live and the stories we inherit play out in our relationships? After forty years of marriage, Michaele Weissman has a few answers.
1. I loathe the numbering format of this book as it makes for a very discordant read.
2. Is it supposed to be scientific? or psychological?
3. Isn’t all this numbering annoying.?
4. A good read but…
5. All these numbers drive me nuts.
6. It’s not a smooth read as one wonders why the need for numbering every idea and paragraph.
7. It meanders all over the place
and
8. The number drove me nuts
*********************************************************
A beautifully told, often humorous, unusual and also universal love story. A memoir about learning to live with another human being and about how every relationship is a mystery—and a miracle.
When they first meet, John, a dashing European, a Latvian refugee, and a physics Ph.D., is hoping to settle down. A fast-talking American college student, Michaele is hungry for an independent life as a writer and historian. When they meet again some years later, Michaele is ready. Or so she thinks. And opposites attract, right?
The life Michaele and John build together intermingles sweetness—their love of good food, entertaining, and family—with complications, including their ethnic and religious differences (Michaele is Jewish; John is not), the trauma John endured as a child during WWII, Michaele’s thwarted ambitions, and even John’s preoccupation with Latvian rye. When he opens a successful company marketing rye bread, Michaele embarks on a European journey in search of her husband’s origins, excavating poignant stories of war, privation, and resilience. She realizes at last that rye bread represents everything about John’s homeland that he loved and lost. Eventually, Michaele comes to love rye bread, too.
An enticing memoir for readers of Dani Shapiro’s Hourglass, Bess Kalb’s Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, and Heather Havrilesky’s Foreverland, The Rye Bread Marriage asks, how do the stories we live and the stories we inherit play out in our relationships? After forty years of marriage, Michaele Weissman has a few answers.
1. I loathe the numbering format of this book as it makes for a very discordant read.
2. Is it supposed to be scientific? or psychological?
3. Isn’t all this numbering annoying.?
4. A good read but…
5. All these numbers drive me nuts.
6. It’s not a smooth read as one wonders why the need for numbering every idea and paragraph.
7. It meanders all over the place
and
8. The number drove me nuts
August 5, 2024
She’s a great writer and I found this book easy read. That being said, there was a lot of questionable stuff going on.
Does she even:
-like her husband?
-accept her husband’s Latvian culture?
Does her husband:
-like her?
-accept her as a Jew?
These are things I continuously asked myself throughout the book.
In my opinion, she gave away way too much information about her husband’s medical conditions. It felt gross to know so much about his physical and mental health struggles. Like these specific details shouldn’t be my business, and a broad overview would have been okay.
There’s a lot of anti-semitism aimed at the author from her husband. At one point, she writes about how he tried to justify, to her, the murders of tens of thousands of Latvian Jews. (WTF??) Why is this in your book?
Meanwhile, she constantly complains throughout the book about rye bread, her husband’s love of rye bread, how she’s treated by the Latvian community, how much her husband’s Latvian heritage means to him, etc.
Her husband hits her at one point in the book (in response to her striking him) and she goes on about how she’s okay with it and it made her love him more. (Again. WTF??)
The thing that kept me engaged was her description of her husband’s family’s struggles during WWII. It was my first time reading about The War from a Latvian perspective. It was eye-opening. I plan to read more about it from better sources.
There was nothing in here until the very end about finding happiness with a partner she doesn’t understand, or even an inkling that she wants to. Even now, I remain unconvinced.
1 star for her writing style and 1 star for the history lesson.
Does she even:
-like her husband?
-accept her husband’s Latvian culture?
Does her husband:
-like her?
-accept her as a Jew?
These are things I continuously asked myself throughout the book.
In my opinion, she gave away way too much information about her husband’s medical conditions. It felt gross to know so much about his physical and mental health struggles. Like these specific details shouldn’t be my business, and a broad overview would have been okay.
There’s a lot of anti-semitism aimed at the author from her husband. At one point, she writes about how he tried to justify, to her, the murders of tens of thousands of Latvian Jews. (WTF??) Why is this in your book?
Meanwhile, she constantly complains throughout the book about rye bread, her husband’s love of rye bread, how she’s treated by the Latvian community, how much her husband’s Latvian heritage means to him, etc.
Her husband hits her at one point in the book (in response to her striking him) and she goes on about how she’s okay with it and it made her love him more. (Again. WTF??)
The thing that kept me engaged was her description of her husband’s family’s struggles during WWII. It was my first time reading about The War from a Latvian perspective. It was eye-opening. I plan to read more about it from better sources.
There was nothing in here until the very end about finding happiness with a partner she doesn’t understand, or even an inkling that she wants to. Even now, I remain unconvinced.
1 star for her writing style and 1 star for the history lesson.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 7, 2023
This book and its predecessor--God in a Cup--came up in a conversation with a relative of the author who shared my Road Scholar trip to Seattle recently. I found the author's style very engaging from the first paragraph. Part personal and marital memoir, part ethnic roots discovery, part paean to a classic and (in the U.S.) underrated bread, the book, is mainly, in my opinion, a loving, messy, journey of discovery into memories: their origins, persistence, effects and mutability, acknowledged and not.
As a reader, I perhaps have preferred, or better said, was more accustomed to memoirs that proceeded from point A to Z in a more or less orderly fashion, propelled by a narrator who, if not perfect, was someone who invited or urged or demanded that I be completely sympathetic. Michaele Weissman makes no such demands. She lays out the wisdom, the foolishness, the good and the bad. In her own words, "Beware the narrator who seeks to portray herself in the best light ... [b]ecause in moldy corners of her being, she is just as primitive and self-obsessed and rageful as everybody else."
I also enjoyed the book's format of broad parts, segmented into numbered and titled units, some long, some a sentence or two, like a diary. It gave me permission to absorb and enjoy bits on their own without the need to connect it all together.
Yes, I really like the book. In fact, I had trouble putting it down.
As a reader, I perhaps have preferred, or better said, was more accustomed to memoirs that proceeded from point A to Z in a more or less orderly fashion, propelled by a narrator who, if not perfect, was someone who invited or urged or demanded that I be completely sympathetic. Michaele Weissman makes no such demands. She lays out the wisdom, the foolishness, the good and the bad. In her own words, "Beware the narrator who seeks to portray herself in the best light ... [b]ecause in moldy corners of her being, she is just as primitive and self-obsessed and rageful as everybody else."
I also enjoyed the book's format of broad parts, segmented into numbered and titled units, some long, some a sentence or two, like a diary. It gave me permission to absorb and enjoy bits on their own without the need to connect it all together.
Yes, I really like the book. In fact, I had trouble putting it down.
October 22, 2023
This book is an emotional rollercoaster through the complexities of love and marriage, wonderfully wrapped in the story of a couple from vastly different backgrounds—a Latvian physicist and an American writer. The author's exploration of the role of rye bread and its significance in Latvian culture adds a unique dimension to their story, offering a deeper understanding of her husband's heritage and shared experiences. But the memoir isn't just about rye bread; it's about the ingredients that form the recipe for a lasting and fulfilling relationship. The juxtaposition of their personalities, beliefs, and cultures is a powerful testament to the strength of love and the intricacies of human connections.
Michaele's writing style is witty and insightful as she shares how two seemingly incompatible individuals find common ground and build a life together. One of my favorite aspects of the book is Weissman's keen observations on marriage dynamics as they redefined what marriage meant to them again and again. She highlights the beauty of finding compassion and kindness amid their differences, ultimately echoing the sentiment that every relationship is both a mystery and a miracle. The Rye Bread Marriage is the perfect balance of heartfelt and humorous. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand the complexities and joys of a long-lasting partnership.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
Michaele's writing style is witty and insightful as she shares how two seemingly incompatible individuals find common ground and build a life together. One of my favorite aspects of the book is Weissman's keen observations on marriage dynamics as they redefined what marriage meant to them again and again. She highlights the beauty of finding compassion and kindness amid their differences, ultimately echoing the sentiment that every relationship is both a mystery and a miracle. The Rye Bread Marriage is the perfect balance of heartfelt and humorous. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand the complexities and joys of a long-lasting partnership.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
October 5, 2025
One of the worst books I have ever read. The author never touches the subject and promise of the book title. What unfolds is an uneven and disjointed narrative that feels more self-serving than a meaningful story.
Weissman who is both the author and protagonist, crafts a version of herself that is off-putting: entitled, manipulative, and surprisingly lacking in warmth or reflection. Her tone veers toward self-congratulatory, and moments that could have offered a real emotional or cultural insight are often hijacked by her own need to appear clever or aggrieved.
The structure of the book adds to the confusion. With its oddly numbered entries. Whatever the intent, it fails to cohere, and the randomness makes it difficult to follow any meaningful arc—narrative, emotional, or thematic.
That said, there are a few redeeming pages. The historical tidbits about rye bread—the traditions, methods, and cultural significance. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between, buried in what otherwise feels like a disjointed vanity project.
In short, The Rye Bread Marriage is less about rye bread, less about meaningful relationship and marriage insights, and more a fragmented self-portrait of a woman who seems more invested in image than introspection.
In the end, this book doesn’t live up to its promise, and frankly, the author owes me a refund—for both the money and time I wasted reading it.
Weissman who is both the author and protagonist, crafts a version of herself that is off-putting: entitled, manipulative, and surprisingly lacking in warmth or reflection. Her tone veers toward self-congratulatory, and moments that could have offered a real emotional or cultural insight are often hijacked by her own need to appear clever or aggrieved.
The structure of the book adds to the confusion. With its oddly numbered entries. Whatever the intent, it fails to cohere, and the randomness makes it difficult to follow any meaningful arc—narrative, emotional, or thematic.
That said, there are a few redeeming pages. The historical tidbits about rye bread—the traditions, methods, and cultural significance. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between, buried in what otherwise feels like a disjointed vanity project.
In short, The Rye Bread Marriage is less about rye bread, less about meaningful relationship and marriage insights, and more a fragmented self-portrait of a woman who seems more invested in image than introspection.
In the end, this book doesn’t live up to its promise, and frankly, the author owes me a refund—for both the money and time I wasted reading it.
January 2, 2024
I loved the history discussed regarding the region of Latvia and Jewish decedents from the Eastern European region of Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania etc. shared in this book. The importance and love of food resonates so strongly with my experience being married to a Jewish man. I remember every meal that my husband’s Grandmother “ Great Grandma” served, always made with such intention and purpose to nurture her family, and on the table was a plate stacked with seedless rye! There was one point where she shared that her husband was skeptical of pastry and would never eat a pastry before having his meal- I feel like I was reading about my own husband! Even though the main character John felt that way, he would still go to the bakery to get her pastries, and share them with his grandchildren after the meal! My own husband would never think of eating a pastry before his meal, I never quite knew why he felt so strongly that it is so wrong- and there it was in this book for all to see- he is not alone! There is something to relate to for all married couples and provides an open window into one couple’s experience of blending a life with two very different people.
August 14, 2023
I liked reading about the author's relationship with her husband and how they came to be.
I thought it was funny how she doesn't really like the rye bread her husband loves, but it indears her to him.
This is a book about musings on a marriage and how even though we have differences a marriage can still work.
The formatting was different, but I guess the author likes that to organize her thoughts.
Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.
I thought it was funny how she doesn't really like the rye bread her husband loves, but it indears her to him.
This is a book about musings on a marriage and how even though we have differences a marriage can still work.
The formatting was different, but I guess the author likes that to organize her thoughts.
Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.
May 15, 2023
A wonderfully written intimate look at the marriage of the author.Two-very different people from very different backgrounds she a Jewish New Yorker he from Latvia but they fall deeply in love.and sheshares the ups and downs of their lives over the years.Very interesting emotional moving entertaining.#netgalley #algonquin
September 3, 2023
Michaele Weissman’s Rye Bread Marriage braids a rich history of Latvia during World War II with an intimate portrait of a marriage. As advertised, there’s a deep dive into all things Rye Bread thrown in, as well. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and highly recommend.
September 28, 2023
Audio version. Would have given it a full 5 stars but found the narrator’s voice somewhat annoying. All through the book, I have craved good rye bread and hope to find some today.
July 8, 2024
What I expected before reading this book and what I came away with after were two very different things. According to Weissman, a Jewish American, the book is a memoir of her 40-year marriage to John Melngailis, a Latvian refugee and her polar opposite in personality and cultural identity, as well as a culinary history of rye bread. Rye bread is a Latvian tradition that she learned is central to her husband's identity. I missed the part about culinary history until after I read it.
I expected the author's story memoir to detail a touching and sometimes humorous narrative of how the couple's love grew and matured over time. After all, the subtitle is "How I Found Happiness with a Partner I'll Never Understand." What I got, however, was an unsettling look inside a very dysfunctional relationship that stretched over decades. I felt uncomfortable reading about things that they said or did to hurt each other emotionally (and at least once physically). It seemed way too personal for me out of respect for John. The final two-thirds of the book describes in detail the history of rye bread and society in Latvia around World War II.
My favorite part of the book, which would appeal to rye bread lovers and history buffs, was the portion dedicated to Latvian bread and its history. I couldn't wait to order bread from Melngailis's bread business, Black Rooster Food! My favorites are the Blonde Baltic Loaf and the Fruits & Nuts Loaf.
- Review by Valerie, Haymarket Gainesville Library Staff
Click here to find the book at Prince William Public Libraries.
I expected the author's story memoir to detail a touching and sometimes humorous narrative of how the couple's love grew and matured over time. After all, the subtitle is "How I Found Happiness with a Partner I'll Never Understand." What I got, however, was an unsettling look inside a very dysfunctional relationship that stretched over decades. I felt uncomfortable reading about things that they said or did to hurt each other emotionally (and at least once physically). It seemed way too personal for me out of respect for John. The final two-thirds of the book describes in detail the history of rye bread and society in Latvia around World War II.
My favorite part of the book, which would appeal to rye bread lovers and history buffs, was the portion dedicated to Latvian bread and its history. I couldn't wait to order bread from Melngailis's bread business, Black Rooster Food! My favorites are the Blonde Baltic Loaf and the Fruits & Nuts Loaf.
- Review by Valerie, Haymarket Gainesville Library Staff
Click here to find the book at Prince William Public Libraries.
August 12, 2024
I read this book for a writing class with Michaele!
My food memoir writing course with Michaele was fantastic, so know that this is a biased review of her book.
Reading this book while taking her class made me pay attention to the details of writing a food memoir. Michale's writing is honest, contextual, and organized.
Michaele did not shy away from the ugly parts of marriage: dealing with a partner's trauma and mental illness, misunderstanding from varying cultures, co-parenting with exes, and more. It takes courage to be honest, and I felt honored to be allowed to look into her and John's life like that.
My big takeaway is that writers write the way that they see the world. I don't particularly care for WWII history, but I found that halfway through the book, I cared about John and wanted to know more about him and his family's background. Her writing encapsulated me through the character development of her husband, but along the way, I learned about the history, too. Plus, I think history is more interesting when you see the impact it has on real, human, lives.
The setup for this book was also interesting. Rather than traditional chapters, there were short essays - ranging from literally one paragraph to maybe a few pages at most - that generally were chronological but jumped around as needed from different perspectives and times. It actually did not feel jumpy at all. Rather, a particular problem was introduced and backstory was given as needed. It worked very well to tell the story.
Overall, a good book! Giving it 4 stars because I don't think it particularly was life-changing for me, but I did enjoy it and getting to know Michaele and John's Rye Bread Marriage.
My food memoir writing course with Michaele was fantastic, so know that this is a biased review of her book.
Reading this book while taking her class made me pay attention to the details of writing a food memoir. Michale's writing is honest, contextual, and organized.
Michaele did not shy away from the ugly parts of marriage: dealing with a partner's trauma and mental illness, misunderstanding from varying cultures, co-parenting with exes, and more. It takes courage to be honest, and I felt honored to be allowed to look into her and John's life like that.
My big takeaway is that writers write the way that they see the world. I don't particularly care for WWII history, but I found that halfway through the book, I cared about John and wanted to know more about him and his family's background. Her writing encapsulated me through the character development of her husband, but along the way, I learned about the history, too. Plus, I think history is more interesting when you see the impact it has on real, human, lives.
The setup for this book was also interesting. Rather than traditional chapters, there were short essays - ranging from literally one paragraph to maybe a few pages at most - that generally were chronological but jumped around as needed from different perspectives and times. It actually did not feel jumpy at all. Rather, a particular problem was introduced and backstory was given as needed. It worked very well to tell the story.
Overall, a good book! Giving it 4 stars because I don't think it particularly was life-changing for me, but I did enjoy it and getting to know Michaele and John's Rye Bread Marriage.
June 20, 2023
I wanted to like this book more. I love rye bread! I QW was very curious about the history of the Latvians during WW II. When I was growing up in Indianapolis in the 1950s, there were many immigrants from different countries, and across the street from my house, there was a Latvian family with a rose garden in their front garden. They held parties there surrounded by roses, played beautiful music, and wore lovely clothes.
My first disappointment was the lack of chapters, instead, the book is written in numbered sections. I missed the beginning and end of the chapters! I felt like I was dangling in space.
It was not like regular memoirs, there was a lot of repetition that I think could have been taken care of by careful reading and editing.
What I loved was getting a glimpse of Latvian culture and the place that rye bread made without wheat flour had in the hearts, songs, and literature. I learned how difficult it was to make rye flour, the foods that pair best with rye flour. I liked how she admitted that she never understood her husband, and maybe never will. I have the same reaction to my own husband, how can he adore 100-year-old eggs? He and the author's husband found that they never felt that they fit in the United States. My father was bipolar like her husband and a lot of stories rang true.
A good book but you need to accept there are no chapters and the book often does not go deep where you want it. But worth reading.
My first disappointment was the lack of chapters, instead, the book is written in numbered sections. I missed the beginning and end of the chapters! I felt like I was dangling in space.
It was not like regular memoirs, there was a lot of repetition that I think could have been taken care of by careful reading and editing.
What I loved was getting a glimpse of Latvian culture and the place that rye bread made without wheat flour had in the hearts, songs, and literature. I learned how difficult it was to make rye flour, the foods that pair best with rye flour. I liked how she admitted that she never understood her husband, and maybe never will. I have the same reaction to my own husband, how can he adore 100-year-old eggs? He and the author's husband found that they never felt that they fit in the United States. My father was bipolar like her husband and a lot of stories rang true.
A good book but you need to accept there are no chapters and the book often does not go deep where you want it. But worth reading.
May 15, 2025
This is a very specific book for someone like me, a daughter of a Jewish mother and a Latvian refugee father whose marriage I did not understand as I was growing up. I could identify with many of the cultural, ethnic, and class issues brought up in the memoir. It is as a very good book for someone like me, and this may be a bigger audience than I realize, but I’m not sure that the general population of readers would find it as relatable, even though family & marriage issues are universal.
The author and her husband were nothing like my own parents, of course. However, the recounting of Weissman’s husband’s family history (and that of other refugees) struck a chord. The family lore that I was only barely allowed to know, unlike her husband—my father locked up his experiences and deeply buried them, also entertained similar themes and ideas: the notion of luck, trying to create opportunities to survive, inherited & experienced trauma, and the painful emotions for a homeland, the importance of bread/food, and people that were exposed to atrocities largely unrecognized by settled/safe US citizens who were insulated from WWII fighting.
I am the offspring of a similar union, the difference is, in the name of assimilation, I was not really allowed to know one side of my family history and not permitted to truly engage in the culture of either. In an unflinching style, this book helped me better understand what I was never allowed to wrap my head around (and still can’t).
The author and her husband were nothing like my own parents, of course. However, the recounting of Weissman’s husband’s family history (and that of other refugees) struck a chord. The family lore that I was only barely allowed to know, unlike her husband—my father locked up his experiences and deeply buried them, also entertained similar themes and ideas: the notion of luck, trying to create opportunities to survive, inherited & experienced trauma, and the painful emotions for a homeland, the importance of bread/food, and people that were exposed to atrocities largely unrecognized by settled/safe US citizens who were insulated from WWII fighting.
I am the offspring of a similar union, the difference is, in the name of assimilation, I was not really allowed to know one side of my family history and not permitted to truly engage in the culture of either. In an unflinching style, this book helped me better understand what I was never allowed to wrap my head around (and still can’t).
April 7, 2024
As implied in the opening "finding happiness with a partner I'll never understand", Michaele has many differences with her husband John: she grew up safe and secure in Boston, he and his family fled the Nazis and the Russians as WWII rolled on. She is a writer and a journalist broad and intuitive in her insights, he is a brilliant physics PhD with the analytical mind of one. Her ethnic group: American Jew is secure in Boston & New York, his small ethnic group American Latvians desperately attempts to hold on to its cultural identity in the new land. How can they love each other? She explicitly emphasizes these differences and leaves it to the reader to intuit what binds them. The binding starts with their strong chemistry. She, a minority with a long history of persecution, understands him. Perhaps that history drove her genuine fascination in and appreciation of his cultural and personal background of which the ten-year writing of this book is the written culmination. She does not quote him as he is a man of few words, but the reader can tell that this touches him deeply. Eventually she realizes "that one would bury the other". Finally in his retirement they start a business together to make and sell traditional Latvian rye bread. The size and success of the business is not the point: its existence it what matters as it an expression of him, their children and his heritage.
April 1, 2025
I am so torn on this story. Their story. On one hand they have made it work for 40+ years on. On the other the disrespect they fundamentally show each other in the words and interactions shared in this book are disturbing.
He treated her as a less than 2nd wife her whole marriage by keeping things that reminded him of his ex wife and showing complete disregard of her feeling when she caught him and his ex in an intimate moment. These are being red flags that’s a he’s just let go, but not completely because they are documented in this book.
She refused to take Latvian classes but then made everyone speak English in her house because she felt left out. Meanwhile talking about culture and traditions. There was even one point where she said she was excited to see traditions change while her husband was devastated that these things he remembered from his youth were lost.
And when someone pointed out how disrespectful he is to her, she blamed the friend accusing her as trying to sabotage her marriage, but still kept the friend around because of the connections the friend had.
Looking back this couple presents as two horrible people who had such disdain for the others ethnicity and personality I genuinely do not know why they bothered staying together. Maybe it was because they were each as bad as the other.
He treated her as a less than 2nd wife her whole marriage by keeping things that reminded him of his ex wife and showing complete disregard of her feeling when she caught him and his ex in an intimate moment. These are being red flags that’s a he’s just let go, but not completely because they are documented in this book.
She refused to take Latvian classes but then made everyone speak English in her house because she felt left out. Meanwhile talking about culture and traditions. There was even one point where she said she was excited to see traditions change while her husband was devastated that these things he remembered from his youth were lost.
And when someone pointed out how disrespectful he is to her, she blamed the friend accusing her as trying to sabotage her marriage, but still kept the friend around because of the connections the friend had.
Looking back this couple presents as two horrible people who had such disdain for the others ethnicity and personality I genuinely do not know why they bothered staying together. Maybe it was because they were each as bad as the other.
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