The Mother-in-Law Diaries [Paperback]

Carol Dawson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

From Carol Dawson, "a master of the light, suspenseful touch" (Chicago Tribune), comes a bittersweet novel about the "other woman" in every marriage....

the Mother-in-Law Diaries

Lulu Penfield has had more mothers-in-law than most people could have in three lifetimes. From the maven of household hints to the glacially polite New Zealander to a reputed witch who practices voodoo on an old Raggedy Ann doll, each one of her husbands' mothers has been a singularly memorable participant in Lulu's colorful marital misadventures.

Now Lulu herself has become a mother-in-law...and as the torch is passed, Lulu cracks away at the ageless mystery of bonding with her own son's wife -- and makes some surprising discoveries as she goes.

"Alternately hilarious and gut-wrenching" (The Austin Chronicle), the Mother-in-Law Diaries rings true for anyone who has ever said "I do" -- and who didn't realize that she was marrying not one person, but two.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Candid, irreverent, funny and poignant, Dawson's fourth novel (after Dancing with the Minotaur) takes a fresh look at marriage and other social customs through the eyes of an engaging heroine. "Serial marriage is a kind of path, a continual fumbling toward love and commitment [and] honorable intimacy," concludes protagonist Lulu Penfield at the end of her "diaries," basically a long letter to her son, Treatie, who has just announced he is married. Lulu's attempt to instruct her son on the grave responsibilies of matrimony results in a soul-searching recital of her own four trips to the altar, the shortcomings of the men she wed and her relationships with their mothers. Her account, spanning from the 1970s to the present, becomes a trip through the sexual revolution as experienced by a woman from a middle-class Texas family whose traditional expectations are at odds with real life. LuluAfeisty, restless and questingAis an appealing narrator who readily admits her propensity to make the same romantic mistake each time. Mark Brune is her Dallas high-school sweetheart and lasting love; she marries grad student Ted Vonick on the rebound and lives in Austin. Subsequent marriages follow: to a biologist in Palo Alto, Calif.; to an artist with whom she lives in London and his native New Zealand; and to a Berkeley journalist and reluctant stepfather to Lulu's three boys. Poor Lulu tries to make each marriage work, but her intelligence and sharp eye for the foibles of her husbands and their mothers (each of whom is a real piece of work) does not grant her self-knowledge. It takes Lulu half a lifetime to understand important truths about human nature and to appreciate at least one of her former mothers-in-law for the "magnitude of her heart." When Lulu finally achieves insight about her sad marital record, it is to ruefully admit that she has been "acting out the paradigm for an entire culture." Meanwhile, the reader has bonded with an endearingly fallible heroine and traveled with her on a distinctive but also universal quest for happiness. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

A tangled, and often dark, musing in the voice of Lulu, whose eldest son, Treatie, at 21, has just married. In contemplating the act that made her a mother-in-law, Lulu traces the women who have had the most effect on her life: the mothers of the men she has loved and/or married. Lulu's ties to those women, and what she learns from and is given by them, are what raises this novel above the done-me-wrong school of multiple marriages. There's Treatie's father Ted's mother, whose household hints mask a sweet, solid love for Lulu and for her grandson. And there's Declan's mother the witch, whose voodoo doll is an old Raggedy Ann. Throughout, Lulu addresses herself to her son and limns the circle of sensuality that holds what is bad for us. Finally, we meet Lulu alone, a successful writer, and see her demons slain (mostly). Sex may be at the core of what makes us human, Lulu seems to say, but it is the mother-child dyad that makes us real. GraceAnne A. DeCandido --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books; Reprint edition (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671040855
• ISBN-13: 978-0671040857
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,645,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book, boys!, July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mother-In-Law Diaries (Hardcover)

When a friend of mine whose taste in fiction I've long respected recommended this novel to me, I didn't think there was a chance in hell I'd like it. I was dead wrong. Ms. Dawson is a gifted storyteller, and I was entralled enough with her protagonist to keep me up far later than I should have been, turning the pages to see how this novel would end. The title is deceptively feminine. For me, this novel was crafted so well, its insight so keen, its language so deft, as to transcend the gender boundary we men sometimes encounter when we read contemporary women's fiction. I highly recommend this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting perspective, September 10, 2002

By 

BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mother-In-Law Diaries (Hardcover)

I found most of this book to be engaging, and it was written from a unique perspective: Lulu Penfield has suddenly and unexpectedly become a mother-in-law, and she is not ready for this new role. She decides to write, in a journalistic form, about her experiences with the mothers of the boys and men whom she has loved. The journal is directed to her newly married son and provides the insight that one not only marries a man but the woman who raised him. I am not sure that I agree with this premise, but I accepted it since the entire book seems to be based on it.

Lulu has always tried to figure out how her various (and distinctly different) mothers-in-law have insinuated themselves so deeply into her life and had so much influence/impact on her. In her journal, she has time to explore these questions and to consider how to think about mothers-in-law..

I think Dawson has done a good job of character development. Each woman in this "gallery" is distinctive, real, and complex, which made it easy to picture them and how they "operated". The author used the structure of multiple marriages to explore the female-to-female connection.

A funny and bittersweet look at love, marriage, and mothers-in-law.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny & Touching -this book has a lot to offer., January 24, 2001

By 

Amy Leemon (North Fond du Lac, WI) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mother-in-Law Diaries (Paperback)

Lulu Penfield is shocked to discover that she is that (horror of horrors) a mother-in-law. Her son has eloped and it throws her for a loop. Or as she writes, "On top of everything else you've changed MY life condition. You have actually reached across two thousand continental miles and tampered with my life condition. Do you realize what this means? You've turned me into a mother-in-law!"

She then remembers each of HER mother-in-laws. Five completely different women each having an impact on her life. She learned from each of them but in the end, does it really help her when she meets her daughter-in-law for the first time?

Whether you're a mother-in-law, a daughter-in-law or someone in between, you'll enjoy the experience.