Customer Reviews

The Mother-in-Law Diaries

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Character development? An interesting plot? This book has neither. Frankly, I had trouble understanding what a publisher saw in it. While the premise/gimmick is great -- explore the men you've loved and where those relationships went wrong through the women who raised them -- but Dawson forgets her premise on nearly every page. Further, she forgets to tell us anything about the main character. We don't care about Lulu -- therefore we don't care about her men (and she gives us so little information about THEM it's hard to see why she keeps falling for these guys). Overall, Dawson's skimming over the details leaves one just plain annoyed. It was a chore to get to the end of this book, and the end is utterly unsatisfying.

Basically, to get straight to the point, the author describes throughout the entire book, a relationship between her first-born son and all about her life with Mothers-in-law. The mother, Lulu, named her first-born son, Treatie. Not only did Lulu tell Treatie, but to her entire audience the changes with Mothers-in-law she would have to make because of her various marriages. Thus having various Mothers-in-law. Treatie would also have to go through various changes. The title of the book is a bit misleading because although the book describes her various relationships, she is talking to Treatie throughout the entire book. She also has two sons, by a different marriage, Mick and Jonathan. I only found one discrepancy in The Mother-In-Law Diaries. On page sixty-four, while describing a wedding, first the author wrote it was an afternoon wedding. Later on, in the same paragraph, the author wrote it was a morning wedding. Toward the end of the book, after Treatie goes to college, he goes home with a girlfriend and announces a marriage. Lulu got hysterical. Then, ends up seeing her life in him. On the very last page, she thanks him for making her a Mother-in-law. I believe this book has a wide ranging readership. Moreover, I believe anyone who reads it would like it. The author should really think about making it an audio book and possibly make a movie about it. Taken from the book, Carol Dawson was born and raised in Texas and has lived in a variety of places---California, England, Italy, New Zealand, New Mexico, and Washington. During that time, she's published three novels ("The Waking Spell", "Body of Knowledge", and "Meeting the Minotaur") and a volume of poetry ("Job"). Dawson recently returned to her home state, where she is currently writing a history on the Maori people of New Zealand and is at work on her fifth novel.

Bianca Spontaneo, Reviewer