- Paperback: 315 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins (26 Aug 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060987316
- ISBN-13: 978-0060987312
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 12.9 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,943,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
This is an anthology of writers such as Russell Baker, Art Buchwald, Gus Lee, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Henry Miller and others, studying many facets of mothers and sons. The elusive bond between mother and son is explored, from the image of the aged mother to the loss of a mother dying young and the decisions involved in euthanasia.
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First Sentence
The older I get, the more I look like my mother. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The older I get, the more I look like my mother. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
My roommate, whose mother had died when he was very young, had a hardcover version of Our Mothers' Spirits: Great Writers on the Death of Mothers and the Grief of Men, with the Princess Diane cover. I was immediately turned off by what appeared to be an emotional manipulation by the publisher. When I complained to a friend about the dust jacket illustration, she intimated the book might threaten me more' than the poor taste in design. Thankfully, a few days later I took the time to look at the section titles (Before Death: The Aged Mother; When a Mother Dies Young; Good Deaths, Bad Deaths; Taking Her Own Life: Suicide and Euthanasia; Regret; Alienation; etc.) and I saw there might possibly be something of me and my Mother in this book. When I went to buy the book at a local independent bookstore the sales clerk informed me that all of the hardcover editions had been withdrawn due to the author's protests concerning the dust jacket illustration. The paperback is not so burdened. The essays in this book are not to be read one after the other but due to their impact should be taken in smaller, easier to digest portions. Henry Miller's Unhappy Memories forced me to want to look at my own unhappy memories. I have never properly addressed my own mother's suicide and my father's clumsy attempt to cover it up thirty-five years ago (see Daniel Oberti's The Accident) This book has helped me reinitiate that crucial process in my life. As a hospice volunteer T. .S. Matthew's Dying is Hard Labor and Andrew Solomon's, A Death of One's Own left me not only looking with more empathy at my hospice clients' experiences but my attitude toward my own death and euthanasia. The poetry which begins each section and almost every essay is of a uniformly high quality and do not attempt to manipulate one with idealized conceptions of what the death of one's mother can/should be. These accounts are unblinkingly poignant.
Format:Hardcover
Interesting as these vignettes are, they began to blur together for me. Maybe they ought not to be read all at once. The editor's "Mama's Boy" intrigued me the most and seemed better developed than many. Most annoying to me was the Diana cover (author-editor should have protested this PR gimmick) and I was a little surprised at some of the run-on sentences. Intrusive to copyedit willing contributors who are not seasoned writers, but still....
Format:Hardcover
Editor Bob Blauner has done an exquisite job of weaving together old and new stories on a subject that men don't talk much about -- their relationships with their mothers. Compelling and moving stories. In doing so, he invites and encourages us to look at this aspect of who we are. The "old" stories are drawn from biographies of writers like Wallace Stegner, John Updike, Kirk Douglas, New York Times columnist Russell Baker and Henry Miller. But the "new stories" that Blauner solicited for this anthology are also finely-crafted gems. One of the most moving is a "decline letter" from a man who tells why he finds the subject so difficult and won't be contributing to the anthology.
The most popular feature in MenWeb and the Men's Voices journal is men's personal stories. For the good reason that other men's stories invite us to resonate with our own stories, the truth of our own experience. This book is a "must read," not simply because the stories themselves are beautiful and poignant, but also because they invite us to look into this too-often-neglected yet vitally important part of our own lives.
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