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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"The truth of loss is loud and ferocious.", January 4, 2009
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If you've lost a parent, then you're likely to better empathize with author Robin Romm in her "memoir of three weeks." The short sorrowful time was the last of her mother's life, spanning portions of October and November 2004. Robin describes the woman she remembers from her pre-debilitated days as, (p 144) "the one who dispenses legal advice, knows what's showing at the MOMA, cooks cornflake chicken while simultaneously doing laundry and balancing her checkbook, potty-trains the dog, corrects your grammar, counsels sparring couples, and remembers exactly where she puts everything." At nineteen, during her freshman year of college, she learned of her 46 year old mother's grim diagnosis: stage iv breast cancer. One doctor gave her a year, the other, ten. Suffering through a series of treatments, she survived nine years with the insidious disease. Her daughter's story is one of regret (time not spent with Mom); resentment towards her doctor-father, of whom she writes, (p 147) "for the nine years my mother was ill, he checked out;" disdain for the horrid hospice nurse who had (p 3) "no interest in my mothers' life" and seemed to want to dose Jackie Romm with drugs to hasten her death, "She's building a boat to sail my mother out," and a bit of conflict with her mother's long-time lawyer friends, (p 148) "there's competitiveness brewing in the kitchen-who can make Mom lucid, who can spend the most quality time with Mom." Family, friends, and church members rally around the dying woman, trying as best they can to provide comfort. Robin deals in her own way, trying to prolong her mother's life, quarreling with hospice workers and caregivers, and hanging out with friends, amidst a sometimes chaotic household filled with persons and pets.
The only real fault I find with The Mercy Papers is that it is not divided into chapters. Part One, 172 continuous pages, ends with Jackie Romm's death. And it seems disrespectful to stop reading at any point during that section. Part Two, the funeral, fills only twenty pages, followed by the five-page Afterword. Some might take issue with the fact that few would want to be "portrayed" in such a state: sick, withered, weary, and not much longer for this world. Romm, an only child and writer by trade, gets that. Of it she writes, (p 209) "...she would have wanted her journey to be something others could use." It was useful to me. From reading it (often overwhelmed with tears), I realized that my father's sudden and unexpected death (of chf at 62), could have been worse. And I don't begrudge those insensitives who tried to comfort me in the aftermath with, "At least he didn't suffer," quite as much as I used to. The Mercy Papers is lovely, lurid, and laudable, especially to those who have lost a parent. Similarly sad: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (especially the beginning) by Dave Eggers, and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Raw Account of Losing One's Mother, July 17, 2009
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This is Romm's chronicle of her mother's death from metastatic breast cancer at age 56, nine years after the diagnosis. The author is only about 28 when this occurs, and her writing manages to be both unflinching in its portrayal of a harsh reality and egocentric in its depiction. I was 31 and the principal caregiver when my own mother died at home of lung cancer and emphysema, in about the same three-week time frame that this book covers, so I can relate to much of what she said--especially the sense that others are going about the mundane business of everyday life while family members know they are standing on the brink of a precipice. Their lives center on the minutia of physical care where their best efforts are only palliative; they know that within a brief span of time everything will be irrevocably changed, and perhaps not for the better. It is a dire feeling, and one that disconnects them from others not in the same situation.
That said, I could not fully embrace Romm's account. The book was too much about her and not enough about her mother. I would have loved to hear more about the once-vibrant Jackie Romm, feisty civil rights attorney and accomplished woman in her own personal life. But the author is very angry with her mother for dying, and is waging a battle to cheat death: "I don't want my mother to die. She's downstairs now, her breathing labored, her face creased and ashen. She's swollen everywhere and on her sternum you can actually see the skin puffed out where the tumors have grown, like a basketball rising from her chest . . . but no matter haw many times someone tells me a story about `releasing the dying,' I'm not going to say this. I won't be okay." (Wisely, her mother tells her that she doesn't need her permission to die.)
But in fighting the impossible fight, Romm is angry at the world. She despises the hospice nurse who supplies pain medication and soothing music, and puts a stop to the morphine in order to have her mother "more present" with her until mom begins screaming in agony. She berates her physician father as having "checked out" during their long and lonely vigil, when it is more likely that he is just trying to deal with the impending loss of his wife in his own quiet way. (He certainly never stops his care on her behalf.) She faults her boyfriend in another state for not taking a leave from work to be at her side for however much time it takes, even though he visits often and is unfailingly supportive to her. She seems jealous that her mother's two former law partners seem to have quality time with her mother and with each other that she is not a part of. And she throws a real tantrum when the new social worker comes to visit, attacking her with profanity for her intrusion into the family as a part of hospice. What Romm never seems to get is that all of these people are trying to help, but they are all approaching this difficult task in their own way--not hers. It is both an honor and a burden to tend to a dying person, but ultimately each one of us must find our own approach. I hope that in time this author discovers the solace she thinks will elude her, and I have no doubt that she will helped along by her cattle dog, Mercy, for whom this book is named.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unflinchingly honest, January 12, 2009
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In The Mercy Papers, Robin Romm presents a warts-and-all peek into her and her family's lives during what was arguably one of the most emotionally wrenching events for her family - the prolonged dying and death of Ms. Romm's mother. Surviving for nine years after her diagnosis, Romm's mother Jackie appears to have spent much of that time suffering varying levels of pain and debilitation. While earlier moments during those nine years are referenced, much of the memoir seats itself in the last few weeks, a useful writing tactic on Romm's part, as it helps the reader feel the real claustrophobia that Romm felt herself during that time. And not only claustrophobia, but ennui, which creep in daily, ultimately making participation in any "normal" activities seem like an obscene act. Romm gets across very effectively that horrifying sense of walking in circles, emotionally.
In the writing of memoirs such as this one, it can be hard to resist the urge to sugar-coat the events, or place the participants in the best possible light. One has to admire Ms. Romm for her willingness to show every family member - and especially herself - experiencing all the conflicting emotions and thoughts that *do* happen - given her characterization of her own mother as a forthright and frank individual, her approach seems to be a fitting service to her mother, as well as to her readers.
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