Customer Reviews

Making Toast

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Roger Rosenblatt's reputation is well-established. He is one of the finest writers living in the United States today. So I expected his latest book, MAKING TOAST to be interesting and touching, and touching and interesting it is.

Rosenblatt gives the history of Amy, his young, brilliant, beautiful daughter, and of her sudden death.

He and his wife immediately, instantly, abandoned their own rich existences to move into their daughter's home. They wanted to assist their son-in-law with the three very young children, one barely a year old.

Rosenblatt and his wife Ginny, through their actions, show themselves to be people of the greatest empathy, self-sacrifice, generosity and sensitivity, trying to find the balance of their places in their new home.

I have attended lectures that Rosenblatt had given at the State University at Stony Brook, where he is a Distinguished Professor. From this report, it is astounding to see this brilliant man evolve into "Boppo," which is what his grandchildren call him, a nickname quickly adopted by their friends. He is the creator of silly songs, the chef of the perfect piece of toast. (Hence the book's title.)

This is a lovely book, a touching and lyrical book. MAKING TOAST is about the power of love.

This is the story of how a nonreligious family copes with the unbearable loss of a loving and well loved daughter, wife, and mother.

Amy Rosenblatt Solomon is happily married, works two days a week as a physician so she can devote more of her time to her young family, to whom she is devoted. The youngest of her three children is only year old. Yet Amy dies suddenly while on the treadmill in her family home, with two of her children in the room with her as the only witnesses. It is inexplicable, unbearable, impossible, but it is reality, and the family has no choice but to cope.

Her parents, Roger and Ginny Rosenblatt, move in with their grandchildren and their son-in-law to help. This is an account of the first year.

It is honest, seasoned with humour and darkness. The page after Rosenblatt tells us just how severely he cursed the God he doesn't believe cares about human beings anyway, we read of the adjustments grandparents make to having children in their lives again, in this case, the talking toys that have re-entered their lives and embarrass them by speaking up from within their suitcases at the airport.

They learn where the toys, tape, and tools are kept, how everybody likes their breakfast, and they learn again that children have no respect for sequential thoughts.

They also learn that belief that things will be better after a year is a delusion. Grief is a lifelong process, and their therapist tells them, a year is no time at all. A year is harder because that is when you realize it isn't really going to get better. This is how life will be from now on.

And yet, go on they do, making toast, taking children to and from their lessons and play dates, eating together, loving each other, and keeping Amy's memory alive, trying to raise her children as she would have had them raised.

This is a story of grief, pain, sorrow, and grace, love within a strong family, the support of friends, and the laughter of small children, as well their own unique and heartbreaking ways of grieving.

"Making Toast" is the memoir of life after the loss. Even though it is well written, the prose didn't capture me and pull me forward. I pushed forward because I wanted to find out more about Amy and those she left behind.

The biggest lesson I extracted from "Making Toast" is that, even though life moves forward after the death of a wonderful human being, time does not necessarily "heal" the wound or help us fill the void.

I was also left full of deep admiration for Roger & Ginny Rosenblatt and Harrison Solomon (Amy's husband). They were able to come together in such a loving and respectful way in order to keep the children from floundering in the midst of a very confusing loss. I have great respect for adults who sacrifice in order to keep the next generation whole in body, mind, and spirit. That said, I'm sure neither the Rosenblatts nor Mr. Solomon consider their actions sacrificial.

I know the Rosenblatt's aren't perfect, but I don't think we could find a more respectful set of "in-laws" on the planet. Amy was a wonderful person because, in the best of ways, the "apple didn't fall far from the tree."

This is not the kind of book that keeps one riveted. But is not a read that you will regret either. Those who've recently been through such a loss may find "Making Toast" helpful.

I found this book to be well-written but self-indulgent; it held me but my problem with it was the excessive name dropping through out and the entitlement of the author. I think the children's nanny said it all when she said that such tragedy happens to many but that they were better equipped to handle it than most and this was pointed out over and over. The family was were financially very secure, had many many friends and colleagues including the children's teachers etc for support and dropping names everyone recognizes, the free time of the grandparents to be able to be there for their grandchildren. All of this took away from my getting really into the book. Everyone was wonderful from his self-proclaimed beautiful wife, to his brilliant grandchildren, and even himself etc according to the author. It would not be a helpful book to give someone who has had a similar loss. As I write this I do not intend to diminish the terrible loss and grief of the family to lose such a wonderful young wife, mother, daughter and sister. It seemed that the author had a hard time really expressing his grief and that it was a memoir of the whole family. I still would recommend it

This is a carefully constructed book, an elegiac, a memoir of grief, and yet, a memoir curiously distanced from emotion. Rosenblatt is a sympathetic figure for an author, a kindly and loving father who has just lost his daughter, but his story about his family after her death did not fully engage me.

The author is an accomplished writer, who tells us that he writes for famous magazines, publishes books, and teaches writing at Stony Brook. His sentence structure is skillful, his syntax polished, and his unique voice resoundingly clear. Although he deals with a painful tragedy, he does not overwhelm us with sorrow, or regale us with pathos. He details his life that carries on in the face of terrible loss.

On the front cover of my edition, E.L. Doctorow describes this book as "written with such restraint." I found that the restraint was too great. The author writes that he is angry at God, but as a reader I wanted to feel his anger. During moments of deep emotion, like the time that he and sons stood, arms around each other, crying for their lost sister, the author veers off into asides that puncture the emotion, derailing the moment. In the same paragraph where the men weep together, he writes that the parents rely on one of the brothers "for assessments of current movies." Perhaps this is like real life, the juxtaposition of the tragic with the mundane, but it is enmeshed in these pages to the point of neutralization.

The Rosenblatts certainly know lots of famous people. We learn that Meredith Brokaw is in his wife's book club. I was hoping to learn more about his wife's feelings, and how she survived in this sadness. Even when he mentions celebrities, Mr. Rosenblatt maintains that restraint, to the point that I don't know what these people mean to him. He receives a letter from "Shirley Kenny, the president of Stony Brook." Not Shirley Kenny, my friend, or Shirley Kenny, my kind and thoughtful boss?

During interruptions, I found that I could put this book down without regret, and pick it up again without eagerness. I finished it so that I could write a review. It is a well written, thoughtful story of one family, which unfortunately left this reader with a catharsis of emotion. The abundant reviewers were quite taken with it, and perhaps you will be too. It is excerpted in The Best American Magazine Writing of 2009, so the literati think highly of it. So who am I to criticize it? It didn't appeal to me.

To me it seems like Rosenblatt kept a diary on index cards in the year after his daughter died suddenly and far too early. Then he tossed them up in the air and gathered them up randomly to write his book. And perhaps that is the way it feels to loose a child and step into his daughter's home and become a member of her family...random bits and pieces coming together to make a new story from an old one.

I found myself unable to feel much sympathy for the family in spite of their terrible grief. The writing is dry and matter of fact: this is what we had for breakfast; this is how we spent the weekend; this is what I told the students in my class. The son in law was extremely fortunate to have his in laws willing to drop their lives and move in with him. They are all good people who deserved better. But life is not fair.

I have a friend who lost her grown daughter in the exact same manner. She dropped dead while loading her severely handicapped son into the car. She was found by her young daughter. I cannot imagine that reading this book would help my friend at all. Her son in law keeps in touch and is struggling to care for his children on his own.

I don't know how anyone does it....going on after such a tragedy. I guess, one day at a time, or one small incident noted in a journal at a time.

Although profoundly sad, as would any book about the loss of a child, there is hope and recovery in this memoir as well. Roger Rosenblatt, writer and producer, has captured a range of emotions in his story of the sudden and unexpected death of his 38 yr old daughter, Amy.

I lost my only son, and I know I felt like the friend of his that he describes in the book that was more than just a little angry at God. I still feel like him sometimes.

However, as much as this book is about loss, it is also about how life must go on for those left behind and what that looks like on a daily basis. He views how each of the family members handles their loss differently and how each tries to pick up parts of Amy for the sake of each other and her three small children. It is comforting to read through the daily routines, the kind gestures, the periods of profound sadness, and come away with the sense that time will lessen the grief even if it does not make it go away.

Grandparenting takes on a whole new dimension for Roger and his wife, Ginny, or maybe I should just say parenting because they really step up to the plate for their son in law and move in to take care of Amy's three very young children. It becomes a family affair to envelop, love, shelter, and nurture Jessie, Sammy and Bubbies.

Thank you Roger, for sharing such a personal and deeply sad part of your life and helping all of your readers realize that those of us who are left have to get up every day and make the toast or anything else that will help us move on. It is an affirmation that we all need to be reminded of from time to time.

Honestly, I thought this book was self-indulgent. I heard Rosenblatt on the Diane Rehm Show and was really moved to buy it. I don't know what I was expecting, but I guess I thought it would have been more profound considering such a serious, unexpected loss. I couldn't believe he included a laundry list of thank you's and spent so much time dropping famous names. (Maybe better for the acknowledgements.) I was put off when he went into such detail about his wife's beauty. The son-in-law was sort of reduced to a caricature. Most of the anecdotes left me thinking "And...?" It seemed like the observations of a very privileged man who'd never spent time with children before that he thought the most mundane interactions were amazing little gifts. Much of it, it seemed to me, read like the content of personal journal entries, not a major book release.

I'd read an excellent review and was curious to read this book - actually, more of a novella in length. The theme - parents moving in with grandkids and son-in-law to help out after sudden death of their daughter - is certainly a grabber. My issue is that the book was written in a style that was far too Dick-and-Jane for me: very short sentences, no complex words or ideas, spartan in feeling - in fact, despite some moments of weeping, feelings are never discussed. What is discussed, and often, is the number of famous people that the author and his wife know. Well, maybe that's just the world they live in.......or might it have anything to do with the positive reviews?

Two notable thoughts from the book: As others hear about the death of their daughter, the Rosenblatts hear from more and more people who have also lost a child, adult or young. The sharing of those experiences was a highlight of the book. Also, when they return to their own house in Quogue, NY at one point, the author notes that he and his wife feel older and smaller; I only wish that he had developed that observation more.

A pleasant read but not one that I would consider a must or recommend to others.

'Making Toast' is the kind of book that brings a 'pow' to you from the get-go. Roger Rosenblatt and his wife awoke one early morning to hear that their beloved daughter, Amy, had a sudden cardiac death. How do you cope with something like this? The best you can.

Amy, a 38 year old Pediatrician was married to a physician who is a hand surgeon. They had 3 wonderful children. At the news of her death, her mother and father moved in with Harrison, the father, and the 3 children. Life is not fair, and this death leaves everyone wondering why. The Rosenblatts had never been religious, and this incident left them with so many questions. How could this happen, why oh why. There never seemed to be an answer. They just dug in and life as they knew it changed forever. Roger Rosenblatt has always been a prolific writer, and taught at Harvard and now teaches writing at a college on Long Island. He has been a PBS spokesperson on the Lehrer report. Now, here he was as 'Boppo' the grandkids word for grandfather, rearing 3 small children. He tells of their trials and tribulations. The therapist, the children and Harrison saw, and how they all started to come to grips with reality. There are many family members who intersperse here and there. One of the most important lessons learned is to say 'I love you' to those that you love.

Boppo would talk everyday with each of his children. He got to know them better. He and his wife have learned how important it is to keep in touch. Roger is a marvelous writer and this book kept me entranced. I would love to ask how everyone is- James, Sammy and Jessica. Everyone in the family feels Amy's presence. They know she is near.
The first year is over and they begin the second year without Amy which seems even more difficult. Thinking of all of you.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 01-15-09

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