Bits and Pieces

When her brother died,  2 years after  their mother's death, Whoopi Goldberg realized that there was nobody to share her memories of childhood.  I kind of got that idea in the other direction, when I reconnected with my cousin, with whom I grew up, and we started sharing memories and I realized how much I'd forgotten and how wonderful it was to talk with someone who had the same memories.

Whoopi especially wanted to share memories of her mother, a single mother who raised 2 kids with essentially no money, but was able to feed them get them to arts events around New York, create a magical Christmas every year, etc.  She never answered questions about how she did it.

At one point during her childhood, her mother had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for two years, while relatives and friends took turns taking care of the kids.  When she was released, she didn't know her kids.  But gradually she became the mother they remembered.

This is a beautiful, sweet book.  It's not an autobiography exactly, though you do get bits of Whoopi's career

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saving Sadie

Image
Joal Derse Dauer was someone who did a lot of volunteering.  She also loved animals.  One day she was delivering sheets and blankets to a local animal shelter and saw this dog who was dying.  She had been shot in the head twice after giving birth and she had been left in the woods to die.  She was in a cage and would be put down the next day.  Somehow the dog looked at Joal and there was a connection.  Joal didn't feel the dog's last day should be in a cold cage with nobody to love her.  She also felt the dog deserved a chance to live and so she took her home to take her to a vet. Joal already had a dog and two cats and was not in the market for adopting a new dog, but as she began to work with Sadie (whom nobody thought could survive) they developed a close relationship and despite the incredible work and cost ($7,000/week!) Joal decided to keep her and with a team she began to work with her, determined to have her walk again.  Two years later, Sadie had made great progress, t
Read more

Winter Garden

Image
This is a story of a mother and her two daughters, the strained relationship among all of them, and how they learn about themselves. It starts a bit slowly.  The two daughters are Meredith and Nina, Anya is the mother and their father is Evan, who holds the family together. Mother Anya is cold, withdrawn, and has never shown either girl any affection whatsoever.  The only relationship she has with the girls is to tell them "fairy tales" at night when they were young, something they loved.  As a result of their mother's inattention, the girls have grown up unable to have any sort of normal relationship with others. When Evan dies, the family is thrown into turmoil.  Meredith's marriage, which has started to fail, begins to fall apart as her husband leaves her when she feels she needs to spend most of her  time taking care of her mother.  Nina, who is a professional photographer, comes home, also to care for Anya, and leaves the man she loves because she is unable to re
Read more

Amy Schneider

Image
After reading about half of this book, I went to GoodReads to check what others have said and was (is "pleased" the right word?) to discover that so many people agreed with me. This is a boring book. She desperately needed an editor, if only to tell her that nobody cares about the history of all of her teachers throughout her education! One reviewer said that she didn't think that a book by someone she liked would make her like that person less, but I have to admit this is my reaction to this book.  Heck, even her chapter about losing her virginity was boring. I haven't decided if I'm going to finish reading it. I probably will, but I'm liking her less and less as I read it...and she has been one of my favorite contestants!  
Read more