Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way

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Overview

Bestselling author Ruth Reichl examines her mother's life, giving voice to the universal unarticulated truth that we are grateful not to be our mothersIn Not Becoming My Mother, bestselling author Ruth Reichl embarks on a clear-eyed, openhearted investigation of her mother's life, piecing together the journey of a woman she comes to realize she never really knew. Looking to her mother's letters and diaries, Reichl confronts the painful transition her mother made from a hopeful young woman to an increasingly unhappy older one and realizes the tremendous sacrifices she made to make sure her daughter's life would not be as disappointing as her own. Growing up in Cleveland, Miriam Brudno dreamed of becoming a doctor, like her father. But when she announced this, her parents said, "You're no beauty, and it's too bad you're such an intellectual. But if you become a doctor, no man will ever marry you." Instead, at twenty, Miriam opened a bookstore, a profession everyone agreed was suitably ladylike. She corresponded with authors all over the world, including philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, political figures such as Max Eastman, and novelists such as Christopher Marlowe. It was the happiest time of her life. Nearly thirty when she finally married, she fulfilled expectations, settled down, left her bookstore behind, and started a family. But conformity came at a tremendous cost. With labor-saving devices to aid in household chores, there was simply not enough to do to fill the days. Miriam—and most of her friends—were smart, educated women who were often bored, miserable, and silently rebellious. On what would have been Miriam's one hundredth birthday Reichl opens up her mother's diaries for the first time and encounters a whole new woman. This is a person she had never known. In this intimate study Reichl comes to understand the lessons of rebellion, independence, and self-acceptance that her mother—though unable to guide herself—succeeded in teaching her daughter.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Reichl combs through her dead mother's diaries and correspondence, trying to understand the woman she remembered as bitterly unhappy. She realizes how stifling were the expectations on 1950s housewives and how her mother blamed her depression on her inability to seek meaningful work outside the home. The revelations are fascinating, but Reichl's effort would have been better served by a professional narrator. While her deep, slightly hoarse voice conveys emotion sufficiently, she is an awkward reader, prone to loading her sentences with wooden emphasis and reaching for amateurish dramatic effect. Readers are likely to be struck by her ability to see her mother so clearly and without sentimentality, but they won't lose themselves in the reading. A Penguin Press hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 9). (Apr.)

Library Journal

Restaurant critic Reichl (www.ruthreichl.com), whose three previous memoirs—Tender at the Bone (1998), Comfort Me with Apples (2001), and Garlic and Sapphires (2005)—were all best sellers, here stitches together the account of her mother's unhappy life from letters and notes she discovered after her mother's death. This brief but poignant title underscores the plight of intelligent women forced by societal expectations into leading unfulfilled lives. Although not a trained narrator, Reichl reads with knowing authority. Mothers and daughters interested in learning more about the restrictions placed on women during the mid-20th century as well as appreciators of Reichl's previous books should also enjoy this one. [Audio clip available through us.penguingroup.com; the Penguin Pr. hc, a New York Times best seller, received a starred review, Xpress Reviews, LJ 4/24/09.—Ed.]—Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo

The Barnes & Noble Review

Am I imagining it, or does Ruth Reichl's mother resemble Betty Friedan? In the photograph on the cover of this slender, touching portrait, Miriam Reichl appears to have the same heavy-lidded eyes and prominent nose as the feminist icon. But the comparison may have occurred to me because Miriam's disappointing life evokes Friedan's landmark work, The Feminine Mystique: "As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night," wrote Friedan, ?she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question -- Is this all?? Reichl's book -- which grew out of an arresting award-acceptance speech in which she credited her mother as ?a great example of everything I didn't want to be? -- attempts to trace how far Miriam's life really reflected Friedan's portrait. She employs a treasure trove of letters and musings that Miriam had scribbled on scrap paper throughout her life and preserved in a box. Much of what her daughter found was surely painful to read: Miriam's ambitions to be a doctor were thwarted by controlling parents, who were obsessed with marrying off the daughter they thought of as "homely." The lessons Reichl draws from her mother's misery -- among them that a worklife is "the key to happiness" -- cut right to the heart of the thorny conflicts that have vexed modern feminism. More and more educated mothers defend their decision to stay home, while working-class women have long had no choice but to occupy jobs that could hardly be called "the key to happiness." But this short, powerful book offers an up-close look at an experience common to many women of Miriam's generation, and it is as brave for Reichl to get to know this new mother as it is heartbreaking that she didn't do so until years after her death. --Barbara Spindel

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781101050965
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Publication date: 4/30/2009
Format: MP3
Edition description: Unabridged
Ships to U.S.and APO/FPO addresses only.

Meet the Author

Ruth Reichl is the editor in chief of Gourmet and the author of three bestselling memoirs, Comfort Me with Apples, Tender at the Bone, and Garlic & Sapphires, and was the editor for the comprehensive Gourmet Cookbook. She has been the restaurant critic of The New York Times and the food editor and restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times.

Biography

Take equal parts family history and food history, simmer with humor, and you get Ruth Reichl's irresistible, self-styled genre: the culinary confessional (recipes included). A renowned restaurant critic who left the Los Angeles Times for The New York Times before moving on to the editor-in-chief post at Gourmet magazine, Reichl (pronounced "Rye-shill") understands herself—and human nature—as well as she does food.

Reichl, who arrived at the Times in 1993, changed the way the newspaper reviewed restaurants; her columns were witty, high-spirited, honest, irreverent, and determined, it seemed, to demystify the intimidating world of high-end dining establishments. Although her innovations were maddening to some in the old guard, Dwight Garner, writing in Salon, claimed "Reichl has been a real democratizing force," and lauded her "outsider's perspective about the snobbery and pretension of some well-known New York restaurants, and…the sexism that often confronts women while eating out."

1999's Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, Reichl's first memoir, was an unsparing look at her chaotic childhood—one that seemed unlikely to produce a first-rate food writer. Reichl's mother, a manic-depressive whom Reichl describes as "dangerous" in the kitchen, was so undone by domestic duties that she poisoned the family with a bacteria-infested dinner meant to celebrate her son's engagement. Reichl got the better of the situation by taking on the cooking tasks herself, and later left New York for California, landing in Berkeley as the co-owner of a collective restaurant and launching a life and that has always revolved around food.

Stylistically, Reichl is a descendant of legendary food writer M. F. K. Fisher, whose essays and memoirs braided personal autobiography with culinary commentary. In Tender at the Bone, Reichl takes the reader from her childhood in New York to her work as a chef in the '70s, her early restaurant writing, and the intersection of her passions for food, writing, and certain men. As The New Yorker put it, "Reichl writes with gusto, and her story has all of the ingredients of a modern fairy tale: hard work, weird food, and endless curiosity."

In Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table (2001), Reichl picks up where she left off in the first book, this time covering the dissolution of her first marriage, her father's death, her second marriage, and the birth of her son. The book includes recipes, which may seem incongruous, but for Reichl, for whom all aspects of life—especially the sensual—are interconnected, the combination works. The result is sweet, sad, unruly, and engaging, all at the same time.

Good To Know

To help her sneak undetected into restaurants she was reviewing for The New York Times, Reichl maintained a disguise wardrobe of phony eyeglasses and five wigs.

The cook-turned-critic-turned-memoirist started her working life at the other end of publishing—her earliest job was as a book designer.

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Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way

Overview

All Available Formats & Editions

More About This Book

Overview

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

The Barnes & Noble Review

Product Details

Related Subjects

Meet the Author

Biography

Good To Know

Customer Reviews

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4 Star

3 Star

2 Star

1 Star

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Your Recommendations:

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