Marrying Mom [Hardcover]

Olivia Goldsmith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1996

Panic erupts among the grown children of Phyllis Geronomous when their difficult mother announces that she is leaving Florida to move north, and they set out in search of an ailing, wealthy old man with no family of his own to take their mother off their hands. $175,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Goldsmith has hit a triple: in addition to the movie based on The First Wives Club and her recent novel, Bestseller, bruiting her name, she will have this funny, schmaltzy fairytale-cum-sitcom in the stores in time for the holidays. "Mom" is Phyllis Geronomus, a wisecracking 69-year-old widow who decides to leave Florida and return to Manhattan to help her grown children make something of their lives. The trouble is that her kids greet her arrival as they would a plague of locusts. Stockbroker Sigourney, nee Susan, unmarried at 40, has a sagging client list and is about to lose her elegant apartment overlooking Central Park. Entrepreneur Bruce, now out of the closet, fears his line of gay greeting cards is about to expire. Obese Sharon is married to a chronically unemployed loser. Domineering Mom will surely drive each of them over the edge. Their solution: to give Phyllis a makeover and a shopping session at Bergdorfs, put her up at the Pierre and take her to a charity ball where she can meet a rich old geezer who will both marry her and save her kids from financial ruin. The premise is pure TV farce, fueled by Goldsmith's clever dialogue and acerbic one-liners. Her takes on the relationships between parents (especially Jewish parents) and their children, and between the bickering siblings themselves, are on-target. Through events that escalate from the ridiculous to the preposterous, Goldsmith steers the principals to an ultra-happy ending and an inescapable conclusion: all families are dysfunctional, but every dysfunctional family is wacky in its own way. $175,000 ad/promo; film rights to Paramount.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

You can't expect authors to come up with a hit every time. You also wouldn't expect utter nonsense after such a well-researched, full-bodied novel as The Bestseller. It seems that HarperCollins pushed Goldsmith to complete her next novel so that its release would coincide with the release of the movie First Wives Club, adapted from her 1992 novel. Marrying Mom features saucy Phyllis, a retired New Yorker living in Miami, bored out of her wits now that her husband Ira has passed on--not that he was any barrel of laughs, as Phyllis continually points out. When she announces that she's moving back to New York to be with her three children, she purposely does not tell them because she knows how little she is missed. She wants to make up for the lack of attention she gave them when they were young. Poor mothering skills should not be blamed for creating these three whiny brats, though. Sig is lonely and living extravagantly on dwindling resources, Bruce is a gay man with bad business sense who cannot forgive his mother for anything, and Sharon is fat and miserable with two bratty kids and a lazy husband. There is really no one to like here, except perhaps the old guys the kids continually try to fix up with their mother. Mary Frances Wilkens

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 207 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060186526
• ISBN-13: 978-0060186524
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,227,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Laughter from beginning to end!, May 27, 2002

By 

Cori (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marrying Mom (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was one of a kind. It kept me interested the WHOLE time. There was never a point where I got bored with the story line, or the characters, although they were a little undeveloped. The plot was somewhat unrealistic, pretty corny, and the characters were slightly crazy. The characters just seemed like they had maybe two descriptions and that was it. Although I have to give it to the author, it was HILARIOUS! It is about three grown up kids who have lived on their own and have begun to produce a life for themselves. They discover that good old widowed mom wants to make a surprise visit, and permanent stay in New York, with the kids. Of course the kids do not want their insane, and nosey mother in their lives anymore, so they kids set up Operation Geezer Quest, to marry mom off. Their focus is an old, rich, and probably insane man for her to marry. Then hopefully through the process, they can marry her off fast enough that her new hubby can give the kids more then plenty of money to set them straight for their entire lives! Throughout the many men the mother dates, the family becomes closer and closer together. The one thing that disappointed me about this book was the ending. It seemed so abrupt and totally expected from the very start. Yet, it is a great little slice of heaven when you just want a book to read to have a break from reality!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Average from Goldsmith, November 16, 2000

By 

Simonetta Cavilli - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marrying Mom (Mass Market Paperback)

I certainly didn't enjoy this as much as I did Bestseller or Young Wives Club, but it was still an ok read. This is a story about 3 siblings who are not very impressed that their widowed mum is leaving Florida and coming to live with them in NY. She is loud, brash, aggressive, strong-minded and always sticks her nose into places where they don't belong. The three decide to set up Operation Geezer Quest, a plan to get their mum to marry and old, rich man so she can be looked after..well away from them. Basically, the story goes on about how this mission is accomplished but at the same time bringing the family closer together.

It is quite a funny book and it is short so you can finish it in one sitting. It is entertaining and cleverly written but it is nowhere near as good as other Goldsmith's books - still a good book to read if you have a few hours to kill.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful fun!, November 3, 2000

By 

William Felty - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marrying Mom (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a wonderfully delicious read, sheer fun from beginning to end. So what if the "Mom" of the title is a real pain in the butt? So what if her adult children are three totally neurotic, self-obsessed New Yorkers? So what if none of them have the exact idea of what Christmas is all about? It's delightful fun to watch them interact in the month before Christmas when "Mom" decides she's tired of Florida and decides she wants to move north to be with the kids. None of them can imagine living within 1000 miles of her, of course. It's fun to watch their crazed scheme of marrying her off to the first available old man they can find. It's wickedly funny and very easy to read and enjoy.