Making Toast: A Family Story

( 77 )

Overview

From O magazine to the New York Times, from authors such as E. L. Doctorow to Ann Beattie, critics and writers across the country have hailed Roger Rosenblatt's Making Toast as an evocative, moving testament to the enduring power of a parent's love and the bonds of family.

When Roger's daughter, Amy—a gifted doctor, mother, and wife—collapses and dies from an asymptomatic heart condition at age thirty-eight, Roger and his wife, Ginny, leave their home on the South Shore of ...

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More About This Book

Overview

From O magazine to the New York Times, from authors such as E. L. Doctorow to Ann Beattie, critics and writers across the country have hailed Roger Rosenblatt's Making Toast as an evocative, moving testament to the enduring power of a parent's love and the bonds of family.

When Roger's daughter, Amy—a gifted doctor, mother, and wife—collapses and dies from an asymptomatic heart condition at age thirty-eight, Roger and his wife, Ginny, leave their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren: six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one-year-old James, known as Bubbies.

Long past the years of diapers, homework, and recitals, Roger and Ginny—Boppo and Mimi to the kids—quickly reaccustom themselves to the world of small children: bedtime stories, talking toys, play-dates, nonstop questions, and nonsequential thought. Though reeling from Amy's death, they carry on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tenderhearted children through the pains and confusions of grief. As he marvels at the strength of his son-in-law and the tenacity and skill of his wife, Roger attends each day to "the one household duty I have mastered"—preparing the morning toast perfectly to each child's liking.

Luminous, precise, and utterly unsentimental, Making Toast is both a tribute to the singular Amy and a brave exploration of the human capacity to move through and live with grief.

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

When Roger Rosenblatt's 38-year-old daughter Amy died suddenly in December 2007, she was, by every indication, healthy. Her asymptomatic heart condition was only discovered in the autopsy room. Her sudden demise galvanized the entire family: Rosenblatt, the author of this soulful memoir, and his wife moved immediately into their daughter's Bethesda home to help care for her three young sons, ages six, four and one. Making Toast doesn't evade the subject of the family's devastating grief, but it gently prods us forward with its accounts of small daily acts of recovery. A restrained, heartfelt memoir of moving beyond loss; now in paperback and NOOKbook.

Carolyn See
"[MAKING TOAST] is about coping with grief, caring for children and creating an ad hoc family for as long as this particular configuration is required, but mostly it’s a textbook on what constitutes perfect writing and how to be a class act."
All Things Considered - NPR
"[An] exquisite, restrained little memoir filled with both hurt and humor."
E.L. Doctorow
"A painfully beautiful memoir telling how grandparents are made over into parents, how people die out of order, how time goes backwards. Written with such restraint as to be both heartbreaking and instructive."
Richard Ford
Roger Rosenblatt means, I believe, to teach patience, love, a fondness for the quotidian, and a deftness for saving the lost moment—when faced with lacerating loss. These are brilliant lessons, fiercely-learned. But Rosenblatt comes to them and to us—suitably—with immense humility.
Cynthia Ozick
"[A] piercing account of broken hearts [that] records how love, hurt, and responsibility can, through antic wit and tenderness, turn a shattered household into a luminous new-made family."
Ann Beattie
"Written so forthrightly, but so delicately, that you feel you’re a part of this family... How lucky some of us are to see clearly what needs to be done, even in the saddest, most life-altering circumstances."
Leon Wieseltier
"There are circumstances in which prose is poetry, and the unornamented candor of Rosenblatt’s writing slowly attains to a sober sort of lyricism...This is more than just a moving book. It is also a useful book....[Rosenblatt’s] toast is buttered with wisdom. "
The Oprah Magazine O
“Sad but somehow triumphant, this memoir is a celebration of family, and of how, even in the deepest sorrow, we can discover new links of love and the will to go on.”
Christian Science Monitor
"Hauntingly lovely."
USA Today
"Rosenblatt…sets a perfect tone and finds the right words to describe how his family is coming with their grief… It may seem odd to call a book about such a tragic event charming, but it is. There is indeed life-after death, and Rosenblatt proves that without a doubt."
Los Angeles Times
"[A] gem of a memoir... sad, funny, brave and luminous....[a] rare and generous book."
Bookbrowse.com
"A must read for all....By no means treacly with sentiment, the book takes us through the ordinary along with the extra-ordinary events in the life of this family as they struggle to regain their center and go on with their lives.
NPR's All Things Considered
“[An] exquisite, restrained little memoir filled with both hurt and humor.”
Bookbrowse.com
“A must read for all....By no means treacly with sentiment, the book takes us through the ordinary along with the extra-ordinary events in the life of this family as they struggle to regain their center and go on with their lives.
Los Angeles Times
“[A] gem of a memoir... sad, funny, brave and luminous....[a] rare and generous book.”
USA Today
“Rosenblatt…sets a perfect tone and finds the right words to describe how his family is coming with their grief… It may seem odd to call a book about such a tragic event charming, but it is. There is indeed life-after death, and Rosenblatt proves that without a doubt.”
Christian Science Monitor
“Hauntingly lovely.”
Carolyn See
The story is about coping with grief, caring for children and creating an ad hoc family for as long as this particular configuration is required, but mostly it's a textbook on what constitutes perfect writing and how to be a class act…More than once, reading this, I thought of Elizabeth Enright's masterful children's books The Saturdays and The Four-Story Mistake, in which four kids who've lost their mother but still have their devoted housekeeper, their wonderful dad and a faithful family friend, manage to transform their loneliness into something to be proud of, to tell stories about. Making Toast, with luck, will serve that function for the Solomon children and for many readers who will turn to this for information on how to live a treacherous life with wit, humor, courage and good manners strong enough to hold back the demons of monstrous death and meaningless loss.
—The Washington Post
J. Courtney Sullivan
…a word of warning to anyone who reads while riding public transportation: This beautiful and moving little memoir will most likely make you cry on the train.
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Family tragedy is healed by domestic routine in this quiet, tender memoir. When his daughter Amy died suddenly at the age of 38 from an asymptomatic heart condition, journalist and novelist Rosen-blatt (Lapham Rising) and his wife moved into her house to help her husband care for their three young children. Not much happens except for the mundane, crucial duties of child care: reading stories, helping with schoolwork, chasing after an indefatigable toddler who is “the busiest person I have ever known,” making toast to order for finicky kids. Building on the small events of everyday life, Rosenblatt draws sharply etched portraits of his grandchildren; his stoic, gentle son-in-law; his wife, who feels slightly guilty that she is living her daughter's life; and Amy emerges as a smart, prickly, selfless figure whose significance the author never registered until her death. Rosenblatt avoids the sentimentality that might have weighed down the story; he writes with humor and an engagement with life that makes the occasional flashes of grief all the more telling. The result is a beautiful account of human loss, measured by the steady effort to fill in the void. (Feb. 16)
Kirkus Reviews
A father grieves over the stunning loss of his 38-year-old daughter, who died in 2007 of a rare, undetected heart condition while exercising at home. Rosenblatt (English and Writing/Stony Brook Univ.; Beet, 2008, etc.), who has excelled in nearly every literary form-journalism, drama (six Off-Broadway plays), nonfiction and fiction-now adorns the memoir genre with a graceful, slim but piercing tale of loss and its sometimes grievous, sometimes ennobling effects. The author describes his daughter, a pediatrician with three children and loving husband, in tender tones. The extended family seems remarkably cohesive and affectionate, with a fondness for irony and humor. Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, moved into their daughter's in-law apartment in their home and assumed as many useful roles as possible. They taxied children, cooked, cleaned, ran errands, etc. The title derives from one of the author's morning tasks-making the children's breakfast. Though deeply wounded by tragedy, Amy's family was financially fortunate-able to afford private schools, a child psychotherapist and a nanny 12 hours per day, five days per week, as well as a retreat to the elder Rosenblatts' capacious and quiet summer home in Quogue. The author rarely discusses how fortune-financial and otherwise-eased their awful burden. Although the flow of the text has a gentle current, it frequently shifts and bends and obeys a psychological rather than a chronological imperative. Rosenblatt employs the urgent present tense as he relates how he and the others cope, but for Amy he must use the painful past. There is plenty of hugging and tears, but thankfully no mawkishness or emotional manipulation. Through the glass of theauthor's transparent style we see all the sharp and soft contours of grief.
The Barnes & Noble Review

On December 8, 2007, Roger Rosenblatt's 38-year-old daughter, Amy, collapsed while running on her treadmill in her Bethesda, Maryland, home. The two eldest of her three children, ages 6, 4 and 1, were playing nearby and ran for help. Amy's husband, a hand surgeon, rushed to her and performed CPR, but it was too late. Amy -- mother, daughter, sister, friend, doctor -- had died instantly of a heart defect she hadn't known she had. What happened in the months following this unimaginable event, how a family reassembles itself after a devastating loss and moves on, is the subject of Rosenblatt's spare, moving book Making Toast. And while Rosenblatt's story, which originally appeared as an essay in the New Yorker, is deeply sad -- about 20 pages in, I had to put the book down and hunt down a box of Kleenex -- it is never sentimental. Neither is it angry.

Convinced of the meaninglessness of Amy's death, Rosenblatt, who calls himself "nonreligious," doesn't go looking for big answers. Instead, he seeks a way to get through each day -- and to help his suddenly motherless grandchildren make it through as well. He and his wife, Ginny, move into Amy's house to help care for the kids. They take them to school, soccer games, piano lessons; arrange playdates; attend class events; prepare breakfasts, lunches and dinners. "I am leading Amy's life," Ginny observes, heartbreakingly. It is in these everyday moments -- mastering the art of making toast precisely the way his youngest grandson likes it -- that Rosenblatt, who has been a Time columnist and "McNeil/Lehrer News Hour" contributor, finds the answer he hadn't sought, a lesson not about death, but about life. The key, he discovers, is "to value the passage of time." That's a lesson for us all.

--Amy Reiter

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061825958
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 2/15/2011
  • Pages: 166
  • Sales rank: 184,767
  • Product dimensions: 5.40 (w) x 8.20 (h) x 0.60 (d)

Meet the Author

Roger Rosenblatt

Roger Rosenblatt’s essays for Time and The NewsHour on PBS have won two George Polk Awards, a Peabody, and an Emmy. He is the author of fifteen books, including the national bestsellers Unless It Moves the Human Heart, Making Toast, Rules for Aging, Lapham Rising, and Children of War, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is Distinguished Professor of English and Writing at Stony Brook University. He lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland, and Quogue, New York.

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3
( 77 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(10)

4 Star

(18)

3 Star

(26)

2 Star

(17)

1 Star

(6)

Your Rating:

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 81 Customer Reviews

  • Posted April 10, 2010

    I Also Recommend:

    Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing after Loss
    The Year of Magical Thinking

    Touching Recount of a Father's Grief

    As a grief counselor, I found this book to be fascinating. The author was so open and honest in expressing his feelings and emotions while also recounting his day-by-day actions and those of family and friends. Seemingly without meaning to do so, he brought out many concepts that I teach in my grief courses. That is, he lived what grief textbooks attempt to describe. Proof is that my copy of the book has many, many highlighted sentences and sections, which I plan to use in future sessions.

    6 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted May 18, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    Good Read, Personal Insight

    As a pediatrician, I was intrigued to read this true story from a father's perspective about the death of his pediatrician daughter. I enjoyed the glimpse into the everyday life of a family that was ripped apart, then pieced back together in a new way. I loved the feeling of getting an insider's view of the small but important events that occur day-to-day in this family, as well as how each member of the family dealt with their grief. A good, solid read told from a unique perspective. A wide range of audiences will be able to relate to this story.

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 18, 2010

    I Also Recommend:

    What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love

    Was already a fan

    I was already a fan of Roger Rosenblatt's after hearing his thoughtful commentaries on The PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer. I love the cadence of his speaking voice, but decided to buy the book because I don't often do books on tape. I loved the sincerity of this book, how the author allowed us into his personal life at a very difficult and sad time, and how he communicated the truth of this difficult time with such delicacy. I do recommend this book.

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted April 11, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    Touching

    I read Making Toast in a couple days. It was a good read with touching and humorous moments. Although not having any children, I can relate to parents loosing a child. My parents lost a son @ the age of 44. It was devastating for them & our entire family. The fact that the parents moved in with Son-in-Law & took care of the grandchildren was wonderful. The day to day activities that took place with the family was enlightening. It's a terrible thing for a young child to loose their parent, but to have your grand parents move in & take of you & love you is wonderful.
    I would recommend this book for any parent.

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted March 27, 2010

    So raw in its reality and truth.

    I find this to be one of my favorite books. It is a family with a true beauty and what happens to all sorts of people. I laughed out loud and cried at several different points through out the book. Roger writes with professionalism but from his heart. I have already bought this as a gift within a week of buying it myself. I read it in 1 day it was so good I couldn't put it down!

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 5, 2011

    Disappointed

    I should have known since he is a professor that he would be a lib and not believe in God. The parts about the children and what they did were charming, the rest is trash. That is exactly were my copy of the book is now.

    1 out of 11 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 24, 2010

    Dealing with death and the life left behind

    Although I can't imagine losing my daughter, I also can't imagine my husband and I moving in with my son-in-law and helping him to raise their three children. That they can all move on together and help the children through is hopeful but I couldn't relate.

    1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 14, 2010

    a tender story about life and loss

    I read this book the second day I received it and was so touched I could not put it down. While reading some chapters I laughed so hard because it was so true and others I cried for the Rosenblatt family. I loved this book because it was written in essay form and it was easy reading all the way. I read this book in one afternoon. I wish the Rosenblatt family my sincerest sympathy and am sure his deaughter Amy,s children will cherish her memory along with the Rosenblatts. I would certainly recommend this book because it was so easy to read and very touching.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted February 26, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    About Alice

    A touching family story of love and loss

    The worst pain a person can feel is the death of a child. Roger and Ginny Rosenblatt's 38-year-old daughter Amy, a doctor and mother of three young children, died on her home treadmill of an asymptomatic heart condition.

    Roger and Ginny left their home on Long Island and moved to Bethesda, Maryland to live and care for son-in-law Harris, and their three grandchildren: six-year-old Jessie, four-year-old Sammy and eighteen-month-old James, called Bubbies.

    Rosenblatt's memoir paints a portrait of the beautiful daughter they lost. He describes her as "a very clear person, even as a small child, knowing intuitively what plain good sense a particular situation required. " She was "both self-confident and selfless, (and) when she faced you there could be no doubt you were the only thing on her mind."

    While her clarity sometimes caused her to be brusque with her brothers Carl and John, it also "contributed to her kindness". Rosenblatt tells of a time when Amy was six-years-old, and a friend got carsick in the backseat of his car. The other two friends in the car moved away from the sick girl, but Amy moved closer to comfort her sick friend.

    Roger and Ginny were thrown back into a world of caring for young children. Roger is in awe of his wife, who jumps right in and with boundless energy helps with homework, makes school lunches, comforts a crying baby, and attends soccer games with the moms and dads of her grandkids' friends.

    He writes of her selflessness, and in what I think is the saddest sentence in the book, Ginny states, "I am leading Amy's life", she says in despair, yet comfort too." It breaks her heart when she eats dinner alone with her son-in-law, knowing that it should be his wife, her daughter, there listening to him talk about his day.

    Roger bonds with a man he hires to turn his garage into a playroom for the grandkids when the man's college-aged son dies. Men generally don't share deep feelings with other men, and this relationship is moving. He also hears from so many other people who have suffered a similar loss, and it surprises him how many people there are in the same situation.

    After a year passes, Roger and Ginny wonder if their son-in-law still wants them to stay. There is no question that they are where they need and want to be, and they sincerely wish for their son-in-law to someday find a new woman, knowing that he "will choose well".

    Making Toast puts me in mind of Calvin Trillin's memoir about his wife, About Alice. Both books are slim, yet Rosenblatt, like Trillin, paints a full portrait of a special person he loves with carefully chosen words. It's about coping with unexpected loss, raging against the unfairness of it, while at the same time carrying on the day-to-day living that must continue. Roger and Ginny's tribute to their daughter's legacy is to step into her life and care for her family. Their story will touch (and sometimes break) your heart.

    1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 23, 2010

    An an achingly beautiful memoir about grief, appreciation, and life going on

    Roger Rosenblatt's daughter died in her thirties, leaving behind a husband and 3 small children, at which point Roger and his wife moved in with them. As with Rosenblatt's other writings, it can be read at several levels. Through everyday details, one gets a glimpse of how they keep going, what's difficult and what's precious, and how a loving community helps. The book contains sadness, happier moments, and humor; experience and reflection. Gorgeous.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 19, 2012

    Save your monry.

    May be a decent magazine article but not a book. Superficial, lots of name dropping, aren't we too special to have this happen to us feeling.

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  • Posted May 13, 2012

    more from this reviewer

    Written by the father of the lady that died, this book tells of

    Written by the father of the lady that died, this book tells of life in the year or so after. The author and his wife went to live with their son-in-law to help raise their three young grandchildren. Pretty good, but disappointing too. I was really looking forward to reading this book, but while I did find parts of it interesting, most of it was boring. The book is written as a collection of essays.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 18, 2012

    Boring

    It's not that I didnt' like it but it was boring.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 30, 2011

    Gorgeeou Gorgeous

    Spare, loving, and full of insight.

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  • Posted November 23, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    sweet simple story

    ebook.

    this book brought me to the verge of tears quite a few times..but the honest positivity of the author kept bringing me back to a place of subtle melancholy. i found it an inspiring and beautiful read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 21, 2011

    Recommend

    A very touching story of death, grief and family survival.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 27, 2010

    Inspiring and encouraging

    As I read this wonderful story I wondered if I would be able to do what the author and his wife did after the tragic death of their daughter. Their actions demonstrate the true meaning of family love and caring. A great book.

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  • Posted March 3, 2010

    A lovely essay on life after loss

    Making Toast is very well written. I didn't like putting it down because it was an easy read, with the well-chosen language of a good writer. I enjoyed seeing the daily life of a family struggling with unexpected death. How does one go on after losing an adult child who had yet to fully live life? How does one help young children make day-to-day choices in the light of the loss of their beloved mother. For these reasons, the book was lovely. I felt I could see into the family and slog with them through their toughest year. No, this is not the book to read if you need something gut-wrenching to connect to. This is not the book to read if you expect to feel the pain of such a family. It is not the book to read if you are looking for someone to walk beside you in your own grief. This is a book to read that will help in knowing how to walk alongside someone you know who has had great loss. It deals with the practical. The emotions that aren't necessarily "correct" at any certain time. People say and do things that are real--but not necessarily accepted in polite company. I enjoy walking with people through their life events that I have not experienced. I like to read a variety of levels of this kind of walking and observing. This is a higher level. A more surface level, yet revealing nonetheless. I would have given it four stars if it had been a step deeper. If I felt it would appeal to the masses. I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking this is a fabulous book. It is very good. Very well-written. But it holds back. And for good reason. It's too soon to write the story of deep anguish.

    The simple act of Making Toast is a good theme for this book. The practicality of life that is expressed in a way that shows love and compassion can be as simple as making toast.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 11, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted February 11, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

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