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A review by nicovreeland
Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander
3.0
I’m honestly not totally sure if I liked this book or not. It’s a satirical take on “the prison of identity,” centered around a large “Cannibal-American” family as their mother dies and they have to literally eat her for religious (and financial) reasons.
The metaphor of inherited identity as something repulsive is not one I’m totally on board with, but the book does provide some good moments as the children of the titular mother go through the specific logistics of eating a person, and in flashbacks featuring their Cannibal ancestors working for Nazi Henry Ford.
The comedic moments are very hit or miss. There are good ones, but an almost equal number of groaners. One running joke involves characters asking Siri, the iPhone AI, questions, and Siri answering them— a bit that feels aggressively outdated and cheesy. A better bit involves running commentary between the “elder” cannibals and the “elder elders” which sharply satirizes religious dogma.
It’s hard not to compare Auslander to David Sedaris— he reads the audiobook himself, and sounds a lot like Sedaris both in voice and in laconic, soft-spoken style— but the comparison is not favorable for Auslander, at least in terms of comedy. Auslander has probably crafted a sharper, deeper narrative than sedaris’s usual stuff, but I’m not totally sure I’m comfortable with everything Auslander is saying here. I’d probably need to take a class, or at least write an essay about this book to sort it all out, but I didn’t like it enough to do that, so….
The metaphor of inherited identity as something repulsive is not one I’m totally on board with, but the book does provide some good moments as the children of the titular mother go through the specific logistics of eating a person, and in flashbacks featuring their Cannibal ancestors working for Nazi Henry Ford.
The comedic moments are very hit or miss. There are good ones, but an almost equal number of groaners. One running joke involves characters asking Siri, the iPhone AI, questions, and Siri answering them— a bit that feels aggressively outdated and cheesy. A better bit involves running commentary between the “elder” cannibals and the “elder elders” which sharply satirizes religious dogma.
It’s hard not to compare Auslander to David Sedaris— he reads the audiobook himself, and sounds a lot like Sedaris both in voice and in laconic, soft-spoken style— but the comparison is not favorable for Auslander, at least in terms of comedy. Auslander has probably crafted a sharper, deeper narrative than sedaris’s usual stuff, but I’m not totally sure I’m comfortable with everything Auslander is saying here. I’d probably need to take a class, or at least write an essay about this book to sort it all out, but I didn’t like it enough to do that, so….