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A review by jessicaesquire
Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We're Saying Now by Lisa Allen, Nancy Davis Kho, Kathy Curto, Ann Imig, Lea Grover
4.0
I'm saving you a lot of time: this is what to get your mother, your wife, your friend, your sister, your daughter, your anyone for Mother's Day this year.
I'm a Listen To Your Mother director and cast member (2013 Providence, 2014 and 2015 Boston) so of course I love Listen To Your Mother and everything it's about, how it gives voice to the position that is often the quietest one. The book is a collection of some of my favorite essays from men and women around the country.
Putting together a Listen To Your Mother show is a tricky job and I have no doubt editing the book was as well. It's about balancing humor and sadness, finding stories that are unique and balancing them with stories that are universal, talking about the biggest things and the smallest. The anthology does that well, covering pretty much any topic you can possibly imagine. There is adoption, same-sex marriage, the death of a child, the death of a parent, step-parenting, infertility, divorce, deployment, poverty, and significant struggles with mental and physical health. But there is also much that happens every day, those moments where you stop to take in just what's happening around you. There is sending a child off to college. There is a search for a child's lost lovey. There is pretty much everything.
These stories are personal and they are short, so even someone who isn't much of a reader will enjoy themselves. It's a book best enjoyed in small pieces so you can enjoy each story and savor it a bit. These essays were all read aloud in Listen To Your Mother shows, and you can tell that the writing has been refined and perfected to be enjoyed by an audience. The translation to book form is well done.
Seriously. Your Mother's Day gift work is done.
I'm a Listen To Your Mother director and cast member (2013 Providence, 2014 and 2015 Boston) so of course I love Listen To Your Mother and everything it's about, how it gives voice to the position that is often the quietest one. The book is a collection of some of my favorite essays from men and women around the country.
Putting together a Listen To Your Mother show is a tricky job and I have no doubt editing the book was as well. It's about balancing humor and sadness, finding stories that are unique and balancing them with stories that are universal, talking about the biggest things and the smallest. The anthology does that well, covering pretty much any topic you can possibly imagine. There is adoption, same-sex marriage, the death of a child, the death of a parent, step-parenting, infertility, divorce, deployment, poverty, and significant struggles with mental and physical health. But there is also much that happens every day, those moments where you stop to take in just what's happening around you. There is sending a child off to college. There is a search for a child's lost lovey. There is pretty much everything.
These stories are personal and they are short, so even someone who isn't much of a reader will enjoy themselves. It's a book best enjoyed in small pieces so you can enjoy each story and savor it a bit. These essays were all read aloud in Listen To Your Mother shows, and you can tell that the writing has been refined and perfected to be enjoyed by an audience. The translation to book form is well done.
Seriously. Your Mother's Day gift work is done.