My Father Married Your Mother: Dispatches from the Blended Family [Hardcover]

Anne Burt (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 2006

Eye-opening essays by esteemed writers about the rich and complicated lives of American stepfamilies: with the U.S. divorce rate hovering around 50 percent, most people recognize remarriage as a now-familiar occurrence. And remarriage often means stepfathers, -mothers, -brothers, and -sisters, and the formation of a new type of blended family.

Jacquelyn Mitchard, Barbara Kingsolver, Roxana Robinson, Susan Cheever, and others share experiences of being stepdaughters, stepmothers, or ex-wives. Andrew Solomon writes about his relationship with his stepmother. Kate Christensen celebrates the stepfather who brought guidance to her life. There are essays from writers in the same family, each with a different take on his or her postnuclear situation: Phyllis Rose discusses her second husband's qualities as a stepfather, while her son, Ted Rose, writes about his tumultuous relationship with his stepbrother from his own father's remarriage. These poignant, heartfelt, sometimes biting tales remind us of the outdated myth of the perfect nuclear family while shedding light on what it means to forge relationships with stepfamily members.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In an era of blended families, each group of stepparents, ex-spouses and newly mixed stepsiblings is unhappy in its own way, and Burt's collection of essays illuminates this brilliantly. Although feelings of anger, frustration and anxiety run throughout each piece, the writers also show the nuances specific to their familial tangles. The contributors constitute an impressive range of talent, from novelists Susan Cheever and Jacquelyn Mitchard to journalists Candy Cooper and Ted Rose. Also notable as writers are Lisa Shea, Andrew Solomon and actor Mike Dolan. The stories they tell are also broad, from happily sitting next to an ex-wife at a kid's football game to feeling torn between birth parents and struggling stepparents. One of the collection's most poignant essays comes from Barbara Kingsolver, who muses not on her particular post-divorce blend but on the way families are perceived and measured, often unfairly. "To judge a family's value by its tidy symmetry is to purchase a book for its cover," she writes. "There's no moral authority here." Without that symmetry, there are arguments, bad decisions, hurt feelings and an occasional, well-deserved triumph. (May)
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Review

Eloquent, often deeply moving testimonials to the trials and rewards, the unanticipated emotions and unexpected self-discoveries that may await steppeople....An unmistakable, unapologetic warts-and-all rebuke to the lecturing legions of busybody marriage fetishists and anti-divorce activists: Step happens. (Elle )

Enticing....Certain to stir discussion and deserving of a wide readership, this book reveals the human side of the ever-changing idea of family. (Library Journal )

Each group of stepparents, ex-spouses and newly mixed stepsiblings is unhappy in its own way, and Burt's collection of essays illuminates this brilliantly. (Publishers Weekly )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (May 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393060888
• ISBN-13: 978-0393060881
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,132,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly Insightful Stories about Families, May 16, 2006

By 

Brooklyn Girl (Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Father Married Your Mother: Dispatches from the Blended Family (Hardcover)

I began reading this book for its gossip value -- I was curious to understand the intimate lives of some of the famous writers whose essays are included here. I assumed that I wouldn't actually relate personally to the stories because I'm not part of a step-family. But in fact these stories gave me tremendous insights into my relationship with my father and my mother, old boyfriends, and also into the kind of person I am -- simply because the essays are full of tremendously acute observations about relationships as well as fascinating and delicious scenes.
Every time I finished an essay I couldn't help myself from plunging immediately into the next, reading the chapters in exactly the order assembled (after checking out the work of the writers about which I was most curious). This is SUCH a good book! I kept putting stars in the margins and thinking, Oh I want to copy that into my notebook -- because what's illuminated is the "ordinary" family, too. The first essay (by Dana Kinstler) made me think about the roles of daughters and fathers, and then in Phyllis Rose's I was thinking about whether my own father had provided enough strength and direction for me to feel secure (apparently not) and Sasha Troyan's lovely and droll and funny piece made me think about how people look while they are falling in love, and Andrew Solomon's made me marvel about the sort of people able to get a tremendous amount done, and the nature of parental love, and a thousand other things. I ADORED the quirky, funny, touching essays by D. S. Sulaitis (who I'd never heard of; now I'm dying to read more by her) and Sandra Tsing Loh, and the haunging one by Alice Elliott Dark, and the heartbreaking one by Jacquelyn Mitchard -- but all of them taught me something. I found this to be such a useful, smart, absorbing book. It provides stories that give insight into one's own life (which is what I for one really want stories to do). Actually, this book did feel like good gossip - but the kind that illuminates your own life.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Portrait of the Families We Inhabit, November 7, 2006

By 

Nancy Williams "ardent amateur pianist" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Father Married Your Mother: Dispatches from the Blended Family (Hardcover)

This inspiring book of essays is a natural choice for anyone who is a stepparent or stepchild and therefore part of the modern phenomenom of a blended family. In many ways the book casts an even wider appeal because so many of the essays are about the struggles we all face in modern family life--how to live with people in your family who may have different desires and outlooks in life than your own. I really loved this book, and I found myself alternately laughing out loud (Phyllis Rose's piece on her absent-minded second husband was endearing and hilarious), wincing (Dana Kinstler's essay on father-love was all too familiar), and crying (Stephanie Stokes Oliver's piece on her love for her stepdaughters moved me). I ended up buying more copies of this book and handing them out to my sister, my friend from business school who is a stepmother, my stylist (no kidding) who lost her father when she was two. The essays are short enough to read one a night before falling asleep--my favorite time of the day to read. This is definitely a great gift idea for yourself or someone else in your life.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching, Engaging Stories about Family Relationships, May 19, 2006

By 

M. A. Farmer (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Father Married Your Mother: Dispatches from the Blended Family (Hardcover)

The personal stories in this collection are moving and the writing so incredibly revealing. You get so many different points of views, shared experiences from stepmothers, stepfathers, from stepchildren. You get it all and each story is beautifully written - some are funny, witty; some are sad; some are triumphant. It's a wonderful read even for those who don't have the shared stepfamily experiences like myself. I loved it!