Playing House: Notes of a Reluctant Mother

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Product Details
Price
$24.95  $23.20
Publisher
Beacon Press
Publish Date
Pages
208
Dimensions
6.2 X 9.1 X 0.9 inches | 1.0 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780807001738

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About the Author
Lauren Slater is the author of several books, including Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs That Changed Our Lives, The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals, Playing House: Notes of a Reluctant Mother, Welcome to My Country, and Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. Slater lives in Harvard, Massachusetts.
Reviews
"A fiercely, lyrically honest memoir." --Kirkus Reviews

"An extraordinary essay collection.. Her sheer bravado and willingness to lay every aspect of her personal life bare is a hallmark of her writing style, and it's on full display in each of these pieces....A brilliant example of the resonant power of "women's writing," Slater's emotional revelations will strike chords in readers unable to turn away from these difficult but sincere domestic truths. Slater's candid collection has huge book-group appeal." --Booklist

"...throughout these 18 essays, most of which map the difficult territory of family, sex, and aging, Slater's voice is aggressively, even unsettlingly, candid." --Boston Globe

"Slater weaves together a series of essays demonstrating that even the unprepared and initially unwilling may create a family life that does not go up in flames (except when fire actually does break out, in which case a redemptive moment can be seized). A marked lack of vanity permeates the author's intensely personal yet universally resonant pieces, which cover everything from the indignities of a makeover to a wrenching decision to have an abortion." --Library Journal, Best Books of 2013: Memoir

"The beauty of Lauren Slater's prose is shocking. . . . Slater's vision is, ultimately, one of unity and possibility."--Claire Messud, Newsday

"Slater's own zigzagging from devotion to resentment (and back) gives these essays their power. Who hasn't felt the competing and incompatible yearnings to be a domestic goddess and at the same time an independent and self-fulfilled individual, free from the endless demands of children?"--Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe