arts & entertainment
Appreciation
And I gCajTeA
Intensity of the mother-daughter relationship is explored
in collection of essays by famed writers.
I
Suzanne Chessler
my connection to the scarf."
Benedict, who describes the time of
the scarf giving as around Chanukah
lizabeth Benedict has been
and her birthday, includes a number of
warmed over many winters by
Jewish writers among the contributors (see
a scarf given by her late mother.
sidebar). While a couple of essayists have
Black wool with bright pastel embroidered
strong religious stories to tell, others relate
flowers, the scarf always seems to draw
more secular themes.
attention, and she is asked
"I picked writers I know
where it was obtained.
are good essayists:' says
Each wearing of the acces-
Benedict, who has written
sory makes Benedict con-
five novels (including Almost
scious of how strange it is
and Slow Dancing), another
to feel such closeness to her
anthology (Mentors, Muses
er Monsters) and magazine
mother through the scarf
because the two actually had
articles. "Some I knew from
a very distant relationship.
working with them, and oth-
ers I knew from hearing or
"I wondered if other
women had gifts from their
reading about their relation-
mothers that spoke to them
ships with their mothers.
the way the scarf speaks to
"I was looking for people
Elizabeth B enedict
me Benedict says in explain-
who had deep stories, and
ing the origins of her new anthology, What I was looking for people from different
My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-one Women on cultures, ages and backgrounds. I wanted
the Gifts That Mattered Most (Algonquin;
first-rate writers who had written nonfic-
tion:'
$15.95).
A baking pan and nail polish are among
"It was almost that I didn't know how
else to process my feelings except to ask
the 31 gifts with lifelong value in the sto-
other people if they've had feelings like
ries drawing out deep thoughts and emo-
this. It was my way of trying to understand tions of the women telling them.
Contributing Writer
E
"It was striking to me how intense these
"I love how each of the essays works
relationships are even after the mothers
on its own, but all of the essays together
are gone says Benedict, in her 50s with a
add up to something more profound:' she
stepdaughter and niece who has come to
says. "I was startled by the number of sad
be like a daughter.
stories, some because
"The feelings —
I knew the people, and
appreciation and
I also was surprised by
regret — all have
the happy stories.
the highest kind
"I learned there's a
of intensity. There
whole world of women
probably isn't a
who have complicated
relationships with their
more intense rela-
tionship that any of
mothers that they're
us will ever have,
still trying to figure
whether mother or
out, and the book
daughter.
made me feel part of
"As I was editing
a large conversation
the essays, I was
about women and their
constantly aware
mothers that I person-
of how much is at
ally never felt part of
stake when some-
before.
Thirty-one Women on the Gifts
"In a more global
body's feelings are
That Mattered Most
hurt or when a con-
way, I learned how
nection cannot be
much people want
made:'
to think about their
Benedict's edito-
mothers and how
rial influence on the final essays went from much they want to understand and probe
very little to a great deal. She describes
into that relationship because it matters so
herself as an involved editor who looks for
much. That continues to be very moving
clarity.
to me:'
My
other
a ye Me
.3 ■ 41,1<eply
alliporbook: —2VARGGILIrESET
❑
Gifts From Jewish Mothers
ewish content — and perhaps
Jewish influences in the back-
grounds of some essayists —
enter into the cultural mix of What My
Mother Gave Me.
With gifts as the starting point,
complex relationships are recalled and
explored.
In "Never Too Late Abigail
Pogrebin, author of Stars of David:
Prominent Jews Talk About Being
Jewish, explains the impact of beautiful
flowers at the celebration of her adult bat
mitzvah. The bouquets were the idea of
her mother, writer and Ms. Magazine
co-founder Lefty Cottin Pogrebin.
"I remember delivering my d'var
Torah in a steady voice, looking out at
the faces I knew so well, and smelling
the flowers as if their scent alone was
there to hold me up and guide me to the
finish line," Abigail Pogrebin writes.
Novelist, memoirist and poet Marge
Piercy, who had an adult bat mitz-
vah long after the days of her youth in
Detroit, recalls her mother's history
through a jade necklace that goes miss-
ing in her essay, "Betrayal:'
Best-selling novelist Caroline
Leavitt, through "The Missing
Photograph," tells about the search for
a clue, a requested present that would
provide information about her mother's
past.
"I wanted [the picture] to reveal that
she was the prettiest of all her sisters,
that she had the most personality:'
Leavitt explains. "I wanted the picture
to show me who my mother was before
my father fell in love with her and then
changed his mind and grew cruel:'
In "The Last Happy Day of Her Life
Cheryl Pearl Sucher, author of the
novel The Rescue of Memory, profiles
her mother, a Holocaust survivor who
has suffered through debilitating illness.
Sucher reveals how her mother had
"always been generous with gifts as it
was the only way she could express her
love for her family:'
The finicky eater in Elinor Lipman's
family was her mother, and "Julia's
Child" describes how a daughter accept-
ed and honored her mother's choices
as well as lessons about those choices.
Lipman is the author of the novel-turned
movie Then She Found Me.
A blouse worn only briefly but kept
forever represents the essence of remem-
brance in essayist, poet and critic Katha
Pollitt's "The Unicorn Princess:' As
the essayist defines her mother's role,
she expresses that her "parents were a
secular version of an old-style Jewish
marriage:'
Travel memoirist Mary Morris
relates attention to diverse cultures in
"She Gave Me the World:' During the
writer's teens, when an Irish boy won her
heart, Morris' mom introduced a pass-
port that detoured attention from a sin-
gular romantic path to a wider journey.
Amethyst jewelry, given by a hus-
band to his wife and wanted by a young
daughter, much later serves as a sym-
bol of intangible gifts. It is all detailed
through "Truths in a Ring" by NPR radio
journalist Susan Stamberg.
A book inscription remembered
by novelist and essayist Jean Hanff
Korelitz in "My Disquieting Muse a
laugh-producing boat ride chronicled
by young novelist Emma Straub
in "Three-Hour Tour" and a front
door cherished by novelist Mameve
Medwed (named for her grandmothers
Mamie and Eva) in "Wait Till You See
What I Found for You" are among the
other gifts in mother-daughter tales.
Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor and
legal analyst for Slate, whose mother
was born of Iraqi Jews, tells about a love
for gardening that moved through gen-
erations. "The Plant Whisperer" delves
into tense times in the lives of a green
family who learned, from a gift that
keeps growing, to "cultivate [their] gar-
den and let life take it from there:'
❑
- Suzanne Chessler
JN
May 9 • 2013
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