APRIL 2023 - AudioFile
Mary Louise Kelly, anchor of NPR's nightly news program, "All Things Considered," delivers a captivating narration of her book about the challenging life of a working parent. Accustomed to crafting fact-filled, punchy radio stories, she writes tight vignettes full of eye-catching detail. Her warm, empathetic voice; personable delivery; and experienced pacing engage listeners with her examination of life on the front lines of news and parenting. While most parents haven't received an emergency call from their son's school while reporting from Iraq, everyone knows what it's like to feel pulled in many directions while trying to do everything well. Filled with anecdotes and reflections on life's necessary accommodations and trade-offs, Kelly's audiobook is like a conversation with a friend who's both kind and honest. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 03/20/2023
In this touching memoir, Kelly (The Bullet), cohost of NPR’s All Things Considered, meditates on her complicated emotions during her oldest son’s senior year of high school. Lamenting the soccer games she missed because of her job, Kelly decided to record her reflections on the months leading up to the graduation of her son James in the hope that doing so would allow her to “show up and be present.” In addition to the expected accounts of going on college trips and preparing James for prom, Kelly describes juggling her reporting and parenting, recounting how she learned James had Covid while she was covering a speech from President Biden and how she turned down her editor’s request that she travel to Ukraine to report on the war so she could instead spend more time with her son before he left for college. This showcases Kelly’s knack for connecting with audiences through snappy prose and affecting candor, and she beautifully captures the chaos and pathos of parenting, as when she writes of her son, “Our bond has changed and stretched and been tested, sometimes sorely tested, over eighteen years. But perhaps the pain was the cracking of the walls as the room grew.” Parents will cherish this. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
A book that will resonate with parents everywhere.”
—USA Today
“Exceptional...illuminating reflections and engaging stories...Some of the best chapters take readers along on Kelly’s news reporting adventures...making the book as at home in the journalism section as it is in literature and parenting and giving an already excellent title added appeal.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“...she beautifully captures the chaos and pathos of parenting...Parents will cherish this.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“It. Goes. So. Fast. is a moving and funny account of the deals we cut with ourselves: what we sacrifice, what we gain, and what we really want (which is everything). By holding up a mirror to her own choices, Mary Louise Kelly gives us tremendous insight into how we struggle to be true to ourselves and the people we love, and how we're never going to get it exactly right. This book is the voice of solidarity. It is a gift.”
—Ann Patchett, Author of Tom Lake and The Dutch House
“This compelling account of the divided heart of a dedicated journalist and devoted mother is tender and gritty and remarkably relevant.”
—Hilma Wolitzer, Author of Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket
“Mary Louise Kelly has written an achingly honest memoir that reflects the joys, regrets, pitfalls and triumphs of the modern working mother. Humor, heart, and humanity bounce off every. single. page. I felt like I was having a bottle (or two) of wine with a close friend whose balancing act very much resonated with mine—and probably yours too.”
—Katie Couric
“A book for everyone who has to get through the sweet agony of raising children and letting them go. Kelly describes the interior shifts of this and other milestones with candor, vulnerability and wry humor.”
—Katty Kay, BBC Correspondent and New York Times bestselling author of The Confidence Code
APRIL 2023 - AudioFile
Mary Louise Kelly, anchor of NPR's nightly news program, "All Things Considered," delivers a captivating narration of her book about the challenging life of a working parent. Accustomed to crafting fact-filled, punchy radio stories, she writes tight vignettes full of eye-catching detail. Her warm, empathetic voice; personable delivery; and experienced pacing engage listeners with her examination of life on the front lines of news and parenting. While most parents haven't received an emergency call from their son's school while reporting from Iraq, everyone knows what it's like to feel pulled in many directions while trying to do everything well. Filled with anecdotes and reflections on life's necessary accommodations and trade-offs, Kelly's audiobook is like a conversation with a friend who's both kind and honest. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-01-12
The longtime anchor of All Things Considered documents her attempts to be a more present parent during her son’s senior year of high school.
In Kelly’s nonfiction debut—she has written two novels—the author ranges widely, writing about the challenges of conducting a radio interview with hearing aids; being called by her son’s school while working in a combat zone in Iraq; and grief over the loss of her father to cancer. Throughout, Kelly reflects on the trade-offs she’s made as a working mother, all of which have sparked complex feelings in herself and others. In a particularly poignant chapter, she recounts how she ran into a professional colleague while staying home to care for her youngest son, a decision the family made because the author’s husband had a higher salary. While Kelly found this encounter with her sharply dressed and ambitious colleague humiliating, the woman later related that it made her think about all the time she was missing with her own children. This first encounter sets the tone of the text, which is filled with revelatory moments that clearly articulate the push and pull of aging and motherhood. However, at times, the author glosses over major events without offering adequate analysis or background. For example, she alludes to the breakup of her marriage but ends the chapter abruptly. While it is certainly up to the author to exclude parts of her personal life, readers may find it unsatisfying to encounter such a life-changing moment so briefly and superficially, especially in a book focused on family dynamics. After the early chapters, the book meanders, ricocheting from Kelly’s home life to her public dispute with Mike Pompeo and her work at NPR. Many of these sections are tenuously linked to the main narrative of her children and family, and the text features too many forced metaphors and insubstantial connections to parenting.
An accomplished journalist’s middling memoir about balancing work and motherhood.
