{"id":4593,"date":"2015-07-10T07:11:51","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T11:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4593"},"modified":"2015-07-10T07:11:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-10T11:11:51","slug":"elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4593","title":{"rendered":"*****Elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(photo: Thomas Hawk, creative commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Richard Russo <\/a>\u2013 This memorable book thoroughly and compassionately deconstructs the complex and intense relationship of a son and his troubled mother in \u201cone of the most honest, moving American memoirs in years,\u201d said Michael Schaub<\/a> for NPR. Russo\u2019s mother Jean suffered from \u201cnerves\u201d throughout her lifetime. She was a demanding, needy person, not unaware of her own flaws and shortcomings, and intermittently troubled by them. Russo, an only child, was her rock. She was also a pretty, lively woman, who went to extraordinary lengths to maintain the illusion she was living an independent life.<\/p>\n

Only after Jean\u2019s death did Russo learn enough about obsessive-compulsive disorder to fit the facts of her behavior to the characteristics of this syndrome, making a post hoc<\/em> layman\u2019s diagnosis. And only then did he come to the heartbreaking realization that his way of helping her might not have been the help she needed. She may have been a frustrating parent, but she just couldn\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n

The writing here is smooth as silk and contains great deal of humor. The well-rounded picture of the complex and loving mother-son relationship that Russo creates makes the reader more keenly feel the guilt Russo has suffered, despite his heroic efforts to respond to her plea, It\u2019s you I need<\/em>. (Meanwhile, in my opinion, Russo\u2019s wife Barbara is a candidate for sainthood.)<\/p>\n

He also gives a vivid picture of his home town of Gloversville, New York\u2014a back-on-its-heels former leather-manufacturing town, whose tanneries poisoned workers and the watershed alike (he won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Empire Falls,\u00a0<\/em>another post-industrial sad-sack of a town). Russo\u2019s mother Jean couldn\u2019t wait to get out of there, except when she couldn\u2019t wait to get back. This cycle had a depressing regularity that continued for decades.<\/p>\n

These are people well worth knowing and a relationship that\u2019s understood far better than I understand what in the world went on with my own parents. Tiny bit jealous of Russo\u2019s ability\u2014the intellectual and emotional honesty and the depth of insight\u2014to pull this one off so well.
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