I’ve been on a memoir kick for the past few months. They are really enjoyable because I’ve been listening to them either through Spotify or Hoopla. I prefer listening to them because it makes me pay more attention, but there’s no plot to lose if I don’t. I like it best when the author is doing the reading.
I’ve listened to “This is Me: A Reckoning” by Hayden Panetierre, “You With the Sad Eyes” by Christina Applegate, “Hello, Molly!: A Memoir” by Molly Shannon, and just finished reading “Save Me the Plums” by Ruth Reichl.
I’ve always had a thing for non-fiction books and autobiographies. The first one I ever read was in elementary school and it was about Abigail Adams. I was fascinated by the look into an individual’s life and I’ve been curious about people ever since!
The three I listened to were so different from each other. Hayden was raised by a “Momager” who couldn’t or wouldn’t separate herself from her daughter’s career, leaving Hayden’s father and son to fend for themselves. Christina was raised by a single mother after her producer father dropped out and off to Northern California. Christina watched as her mother got into and eventually out of an abusive relationship. It felt like Hayden was treading lightly and making excuses for people in her life, whereas Christina didn’t care who she stomped on, and it was delightful to hear her “name names”. Unfortunately, Hayden suffered from addiction and recently passed away and Christina has dealt with breast cancer and now MS but she is still fighting strong. Hayden read with little emotion and Christina spoke softly, shouted, and cried along the way.
Molly Shannon’s memoir was a whole different story. Molly is probably the one of the three I knew the least about and other than her Super-stah and Mary Katherine Gallagher skits on Saturday Night Live, I haven’t seen her in anything. I did know her mother died when she was young, but not the circumstances. Her story was incredible sad in the tragic way her mother, younger sister, and cousin died in a car accident and she, her father, and older sister, Mary survived.
She talks of the time afterwards when her father was in the hospital recovering and learning to walk again and she and her sister lived with their aunt, whose daughter died in the accident. Her father lived there when he got out of rehabilitation but resented “the rules” of his brother in law and he, Mary, and Molly went home. This arrangement brought on years of co-dependence between Molly and her father.
He was the youngest of ten children and “everybody loved Jimmy Shannon”. He was a real prankster and loved to challenge his daughters and their friends with “I bet you can’t….” At one point he continued to challenge them to sneak onto an airplane and fly somewhere. He was shocked when Molly and her friend managed to do this, flying from Cleveland to New York! He tried to make them do the same to return home, but couldn’t find another gullible gate attendant so he had to pay to fly them home. This is just one of the stories she talks about that had me laughing out loud in the car. But honestly, some of the stories horrified me and I can’t believe none of his siblings stepped in to help. Molly talks about the mothers of her friends though who were always there for her.
Molly holds nothing back, talking about how happy she was to leave for college to get away from the co-dependent relationship, how angry she would be when he would be sober for years and then go on a bender, and how grateful she was for her final phone calls with him while he was dying from cancer.
I enjoyed listening to her read so much, I listened right on through the acknowledgements and when she would mention a name I would think, “oh, yeah, I remember them!”
That last one, and this one I read, was “Save Me the Plums” by Ruth Reichl. She was a famous New York Times restaurant critic who became the Editor in Chief of Gourmet magazine. This memoir is about her time at Gourmet but it includes much more, beginning with growing up in New York City with her parents. Her father, a German immigrant and book cover designer and her mother who suffered from bi-polar disease and was always longing for the finer things in life. Ruth discovered Gourmet Magazine when she was eight years old and it coincided with her love of food and cooking. Or maybe it was because of it. She wasn’t a typical Editor in Chief because she was a writer and had never been a manager, so with some convincing she accepted the position.
She held the position for from 1999 to 2009 until the day Si Newhouse, the owner of Condé Nast, called a meeting of employees of Gourmet magazine and announced they were closing down the magazine and “your key cards will work today and tomorrow until 5pm”.
I love her writing and I think the audiobook would have been good too (although it’s not read by her) but it’s not on Hoopla and I have to wait until the 19th of the month to listen to an audio book there (I used up all my audiobook time!).
I’ve moved on and am now going to listen to Jacqueline Kennedy’s conversations on life with John F. Kennedy. They are interviews conducted by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr in 1964, approximately seven months after the president’s death. The transcripts were kept under lock and key for 50 years and after reading them, Caroline made the decision to have them released for publication. I’m only on the introduction but GoodRead reviews have been positive.
What types of books do you enjoy reading? Do you prefer books or audiobooks? I always have a book to read and the audiobooks are for my trips to and from work or wherever and also on my lunchtime walks. It has really upped my book totals!
These books don’t stop me from going to the library and borrowing books!
