Mothering Memoirs Overdose
August 16th, 2003
Too much of a good thing?
Enjoyed Ayun Halliday’s Big Rumpus and Marion
Winik’s Lunchbox Chronicles but have this vision of a recovery group one
day for adults whose every bowel movement was extolled and published by their
mothers. Imagine the confessionals “Hi, my name’s Sam, and after my mother
published an argument we had when I was fifteen in a prominent on-line magazine,
I decided I had to get even by doing something she couldn’t write about…” So
I took a break from agonizing over people who are insensitive to the parenting
choices we all have to make and dove into Donna Tartt’s The Secret
History, which was what I’d wanted all of Highsmith’s Talented Mr.
Ripley books to be. Set in a small Vermont college among classics scholars,
it made me want to dig out my Greek lexicon and jump into heady translations.
Not that the pile of books next to my bed has gotten any smaller, mind
you…
Winik’s Lunchbox Chronicles but have this vision of a recovery group one
day for adults whose every bowel movement was extolled and published by their
mothers. Imagine the confessionals “Hi, my name’s Sam, and after my mother
published an argument we had when I was fifteen in a prominent on-line magazine,
I decided I had to get even by doing something she couldn’t write about…” So
I took a break from agonizing over people who are insensitive to the parenting
choices we all have to make and dove into Donna Tartt’s The Secret
History, which was what I’d wanted all of Highsmith’s Talented Mr.
Ripley books to be. Set in a small Vermont college among classics scholars,
it made me want to dig out my Greek lexicon and jump into heady translations.
Not that the pile of books next to my bed has gotten any smaller, mind
you…
