Written by Jennifer K. Lader
January 14, 2009
Review of In My Mother’s House by Stephanie Kaplan Cohen
Stephanie Kaplan Cohen kept me asking one question throughout this book — why did she write the memoir? I found the answer to the mystery on the very last page. Cohen blames her mother, and particularly the house that her mother bought, for causing her father to leave the family.
The book catalogues many leaks, but most are not from poor plumbing. We hear of the drainage from the children’s infected ears (page 47), plenty of “snot” (pages 6, 28, 91), and melting ice pops (page 35). Most of the females cry from time to time. Bleeding occurs — from the badly skinned knees, to menstruation, to the unfortunate neighbor girl in one of the opening stories. Cohen vomits or mentions vomit several times in the course of this memoir (pages 64, 106). But more than that, Cohen seems to spew the vignettes themselves, mainly dealing with the misdeeds or anger of her mother, one after the other, onto the page. I see the vomit as rage and the bleeding as pain. Cohen expresses her rage and her pain.
The adult author does not seem to distance herself or in any way empathize with her mother. Yet, the only person who takes on three dimensions in the book is Cohen’s mother, Augusta. The events relating to Margaret’s illness reveal Augusta’s compassion and determination (page 48). Her seemingly hard-hearted comments to Cohen reveal her own difficult yet ambitious path. She raised her husband’s illegitimate child apparently treating her as her own, and not without difficulties — rickets, lice, and getting blamed for the psychological affects of the abuse the child received as an infant from the birth mother (page 94). Augusta had many faults as a mother, but Cohen showed me what to admire, too.
In what I found to be the best scene in the book, Augusta prepares to give her husband the monthly bills by preparing a lavish meal and dressing herself well, then faces her husband. This was the first enjoyable scene in the book. It begins on page 103 and goes on longer than most of the book’s vignettes.
The bill paying scene fleshed out Cohen's father more than any other. Before that he had been a moody presence recovering from a stressful workday. He was a Jewish man with an annual card game on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (page 111). He was the occasionally manic provider of a day filled with an excess of treats and outings that left the children sick to their stomachs (page 57). The father’s main role seemed to be one of reaction, fretting over money or blaming Augusta for buying the house. He takes a passive role, never seeming to be in a position of responsibility or control in the family. He plays a trump card in this final reaction, though. On the last page, Cohen tells us “[w]hen Mother came home, Daddy packed a suitcase and went away. We thought he was getting even with her, but he never came home again.”
Both of the parents were busy pulling themselves out of a mire. The aspect of the book that I found interesting was seeing where they succeeded and failed. The author was more in a position to see and feel the failures.
As I sat reading In My Mother's House at my son’s Tae Kwon Do class, a friend walked up to me and said, “The author is my mother-in-law's first cousin...Paula, she appears in the beginning of the book." My friend has met Cohen and vouches for the high-quality of her mothering and grandmothering.
The “about the author” section at the back of the book tells us that at the age of 63, Cohen became a Bat Mitzvah. The memoir hardly deals with being Jewish. I don’t mind the lack of religious upbringing; that’s how some families are. I am curious about the spiritual journey and any healing that may have occurred later in life, and thoughts on how her childhood made her who she is today.
Again in “about the author,” we learn that Cohen’s husband gave her a Bat Mitzvah present of a word processor “as a twist on the traditional fountain pen,” (page 126). In one incident in the memoir, Cohen sets her schoolbooks on her mother’s brand new loveseat after school (page 53). A fountain pen in her pencil bag leaked onto the loveseat. It seems to me that when Cohen wrote her memoir, her pen leaked all over her mother.
Jennifer Lader is a writer based in Bethlehem, PA. She specializes in writing for children. Jennifer lives with her husband, an architect, and their children. She is a member of the Great Lehigh Valley Writer's Group.
January 14, 2009
Review of In My Mother’s House by Stephanie Kaplan Cohen
Stephanie Kaplan Cohen kept me asking one question throughout this book — why did she write the memoir? I found the answer to the mystery on the very last page. Cohen blames her mother, and particularly the house that her mother bought, for causing her father to leave the family.
The book catalogues many leaks, but most are not from poor plumbing. We hear of the drainage from the children’s infected ears (page 47), plenty of “snot” (pages 6, 28, 91), and melting ice pops (page 35). Most of the females cry from time to time. Bleeding occurs — from the badly skinned knees, to menstruation, to the unfortunate neighbor girl in one of the opening stories. Cohen vomits or mentions vomit several times in the course of this memoir (pages 64, 106). But more than that, Cohen seems to spew the vignettes themselves, mainly dealing with the misdeeds or anger of her mother, one after the other, onto the page. I see the vomit as rage and the bleeding as pain. Cohen expresses her rage and her pain.
The adult author does not seem to distance herself or in any way empathize with her mother. Yet, the only person who takes on three dimensions in the book is Cohen’s mother, Augusta. The events relating to Margaret’s illness reveal Augusta’s compassion and determination (page 48). Her seemingly hard-hearted comments to Cohen reveal her own difficult yet ambitious path. She raised her husband’s illegitimate child apparently treating her as her own, and not without difficulties — rickets, lice, and getting blamed for the psychological affects of the abuse the child received as an infant from the birth mother (page 94). Augusta had many faults as a mother, but Cohen showed me what to admire, too.
In what I found to be the best scene in the book, Augusta prepares to give her husband the monthly bills by preparing a lavish meal and dressing herself well, then faces her husband. This was the first enjoyable scene in the book. It begins on page 103 and goes on longer than most of the book’s vignettes.
The bill paying scene fleshed out Cohen's father more than any other. Before that he had been a moody presence recovering from a stressful workday. He was a Jewish man with an annual card game on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (page 111). He was the occasionally manic provider of a day filled with an excess of treats and outings that left the children sick to their stomachs (page 57). The father’s main role seemed to be one of reaction, fretting over money or blaming Augusta for buying the house. He takes a passive role, never seeming to be in a position of responsibility or control in the family. He plays a trump card in this final reaction, though. On the last page, Cohen tells us “[w]hen Mother came home, Daddy packed a suitcase and went away. We thought he was getting even with her, but he never came home again.”
Both of the parents were busy pulling themselves out of a mire. The aspect of the book that I found interesting was seeing where they succeeded and failed. The author was more in a position to see and feel the failures.
As I sat reading In My Mother's House at my son’s Tae Kwon Do class, a friend walked up to me and said, “The author is my mother-in-law's first cousin...Paula, she appears in the beginning of the book." My friend has met Cohen and vouches for the high-quality of her mothering and grandmothering.
The “about the author” section at the back of the book tells us that at the age of 63, Cohen became a Bat Mitzvah. The memoir hardly deals with being Jewish. I don’t mind the lack of religious upbringing; that’s how some families are. I am curious about the spiritual journey and any healing that may have occurred later in life, and thoughts on how her childhood made her who she is today.
Again in “about the author,” we learn that Cohen’s husband gave her a Bat Mitzvah present of a word processor “as a twist on the traditional fountain pen,” (page 126). In one incident in the memoir, Cohen sets her schoolbooks on her mother’s brand new loveseat after school (page 53). A fountain pen in her pencil bag leaked onto the loveseat. It seems to me that when Cohen wrote her memoir, her pen leaked all over her mother.
Jennifer Lader is a writer based in Bethlehem, PA. She specializes in writing for children. Jennifer lives with her husband, an architect, and their children. She is a member of the Great Lehigh Valley Writer's Group.
