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A review by tanya_the_spack
Born with Teeth by Kate Mulgrew
3.0
I love Captain Janeway, so read this to learn about the actress behind the character. It's well written and interesting, but also frustrating. Almost the entire book is a recollection of one bad relationship after another, hitting each one with passion, but then every single one of her romantic relationships never goes beyond the infatuation step (even her marriage!), and when infatuation fades (as it always will), she never moves on to the love, friendship, and commitment phase of a relationship. When she's young, fine, whatever. But as she grows older, she never goes beyond these immature relationships, and she seems to have no self-awareness about it. For the most part the men she jumps to are harmless (the creepy Italian guy who was setting up an abusive relationship being the obvious exception), so she's been very lucky, at least.
Another staggering lack of awareness: She divorced right before she got the role of Janeway, so her young sons were reeling from the divorce, and then her new job required crazy long hours (12 to 18 hours a day), so from her sons' perspectives, they'd sort of lost access to both parents (it seems like she got primary custody). The kids acted out a bit. Instead of attributing it to, well, all that, she attributed their acting out to her just being a woman, that her kids would have been fine if she were a man working long hours. She seemed completely oblivious to the sudden lack of both parents at the same time, and since their dad wasn't around for them to be angry to, the were angry to her.
The second key part of her memoir (besides her bad relationships) involves the daughter she gave up for adoption. I am a big supporter of adoption, and I give her major props for taking that path instead of abortion. The story of when she gave birth and gave up her daughter is truly sad, though - not allowed to even see or hold her daughter. And then the lies told to her later on from the organization that arranged the adoption.... The birth mother is doing something incredibly difficult and brave. Can we at least not make it harder?! Their reunion when her daughter was grown was sweet.
It's clear she loves acting, and she seems like a nice person who would make a good (if melodramatic) friend. But girl's definitely got her issues.
Another staggering lack of awareness: She divorced right before she got the role of Janeway, so her young sons were reeling from the divorce, and then her new job required crazy long hours (12 to 18 hours a day), so from her sons' perspectives, they'd sort of lost access to both parents (it seems like she got primary custody). The kids acted out a bit. Instead of attributing it to, well, all that, she attributed their acting out to her just being a woman, that her kids would have been fine if she were a man working long hours. She seemed completely oblivious to the sudden lack of both parents at the same time, and since their dad wasn't around for them to be angry to, the were angry to her.
The second key part of her memoir (besides her bad relationships) involves the daughter she gave up for adoption. I am a big supporter of adoption, and I give her major props for taking that path instead of abortion. The story of when she gave birth and gave up her daughter is truly sad, though - not allowed to even see or hold her daughter. And then the lies told to her later on from the organization that arranged the adoption.... The birth mother is doing something incredibly difficult and brave. Can we at least not make it harder?! Their reunion when her daughter was grown was sweet.
It's clear she loves acting, and she seems like a nice person who would make a good (if melodramatic) friend. But girl's definitely got her issues.