Fine, I'm a Terrible Person

by Lisa F Rosenberg

Overview

This funny mother-daughter caper story stars 73-year-old, overweight former beauty, Aurora Hmans Feldenburg, who is a hapless, perpetually broke, eccentric divorcee living in the wealthy enclave of Marin County in Northern California. Aurora is wakened by a phone call informing her that her father's widow has died. Possibly her last chance at solvency, she decides to drive to Los Angeles to see if there is a will and how she might benefit.

Enter Aurora's high-strung daughter, 43-year-old Leyla Feldenburg Rothstein, who spends her days keeping up with the other Marin Uber mom's, manically pursuing perfection in herself, her home, and her children. When she overhears a conversation at parent's night at her children's elite private school, and suspects her husband, an investment banker in the cannabis industry, is embarking on an affair, she decides to sneak into a Cannabis business conference he is attending, also in LA, to spy on him.

Aurora and Leyla's separate quests simultaneously intersect and enmesh in Los Angeles over the course of a weekend provoking hijinks and chaos. Will Leyla break free from her mother's toxic dependency? Will Aurora achieve her lifelong goal of financial security, as always, at Leyla's expense? Can you survive your Jewish mother? Will mother and daughter ever be on speaking terms again?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781960573674
Publisher:	Sibylline Digital First
Publication date:	01/24/2025
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	5.32(w) x 8.47(h) x 0.62(d)

Editorial Reviews

2025-02-05
Shared cultural and familial trauma—and lousy men—loom large in this wry mother-daughter novel by Rosenberg.

San Franciscan Leyla Rothstein and her mother, Aurora Feldenburg, couldn’t be less alike. Leyla has a seemingly insatiable desire for efficiency, order, and perfection in her appearance, her family, and her marriage, and her perpetually cash-strapped mother is content to live amid the clutter of the past, gliding through the world clad in rhinestone-adorned velour sweatsuits and sparkly sneakers. Their interactions are often strained, as they often involve money—namely, the funds that Leyla sends her mom every month to bolster her meager Social Security checks. Leyla’s conversations with her mother are frequently laced with proverbs in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language of the family’s Rhodian roots. Two things bring the semi-estranged mother and daughter to Los Angeles: Leyla’s suspicions that her husband is cheating on her during a cannabis industry conference (his alleged mistress owns a company that makes THC-infused toothpaste for dogs), and Aurora’s desire to see if her late father’s recently deceased wife put her in her will. Predictably, the weekend dredges up long-suppressed family issues. Rosenberg’s novel has an effortless, dry sense of humor and quippy tone that lend themselves well to its chaotic storylines; along the way, it offers thoughtful details about Rhodian culture, language, and mysticism. The characters, as outlandish as they are, feel believably real, from their speech patterns to their idiosyncratic habits; Aurora, for example, delights in the “burnt smell of the English muffin in her old GE toaster oven,” while Leyla privately frets over which waste bin she should use to dispose of a biodegradable wine glass. Such detail extends beyond the interior lives of the characters, making for a breezy, funny, and propulsive read.

A redemptive and briskly plot-driven family story.

Kirkus Reviews