Customer Reviews

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

5 star:		(123)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book is a pleasure to read. Fast, nervous, searching--it's a great reassurance to any woman experiencing the very real demands of pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering.

Lamott is a self-confessed non-superwoman--preoccupied with Sam in the early months of his life, it is as much as she can do to brush her teeth, let alone get out of bed. Writing, her life's work? She obviously misses it, but for a few difficult months, even as she is sole-breadwinner for her little family--she just can't get up the energy to do it. The reader knows that she finished this book, that she kept on writing--but the reader also understands that for a certain time period Lamott was paralyzed by her new experience.

The book is very obviously adapted from a real journal--prior to Sam's birth, she worries about the fact that he is male. She worries about his alien genitals, and goes for circumcision because it's obviously what she likes in a man, as much as it is for any health reasons. These worries fade once Sam is born, replaced by the reality of colic, poop, and struggle for a balance between "Sam-time" and "Mom-time." It shows Lamott's talent as a writer that this sequential experience of changes in her baby's life comes as a strength, not a weakness.

Anne Lamott's "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year" is one of the most honest--painfully so--books I've ever read on both pregnancy and new motherhood. Given the strictures of Lamott's situation at the time--no man around to help her or take responsibility for his child--the humor in this book is nothing short of amazing. After a particularly frustrating episode of feeding solids to her son Sam, Lamott writes that the process is a lot like spackling; you fill the hole with stuff, scrape around the sides, try to pack some more stuff in the hole, and so on. This was so true and so perfectly described that I laughed out loud with recognition. Although Lamott's situation isn't everyone's, the difficulties, fears and joys she describes herein are universal to most new parents. This makes a marvelous gift for the new mom who has everything else and who could use a good laugh.

With unflinching honesty Anne LaMott loosely recounts the first year of her son's life. As a recovering alcoholic and single Mother, she vacillates between hair pulling frustration and utter awe as her son changes month by month, sometimes day by day. Surrounded by an incredible support staff of friends and family, and an unwavering faith in God she navigates the path of parenthood and life with a wicked sense of humor that leaves you laughing out loud one minute and then pricking your heart with moving eloquence.

I'm a Californian, I'm a writer (Baby Catcher, Scribner 2002), I'm a mother and midwife, and I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Anne Lamott fan - and Operating Instructions is one of Annie's very, very best. With wit, humor, and brutal honesty, she chronicles the pregnancy, birth, and 1st year of her son Sam's life. At the same time, she shares the illness, decline and death of her best friend, Pammy. Written with her usual inimitable and quirky take on Life and populated by her usual quirky cast of characters, Operating Instructions will stand the test of time.

When I gave birth to a son in 1997 I, quite honestly, didn't know what hit me. I felt joy and wonder but I wasn't "blissed out" the way the people around me expected me to be. I was too frightened by my changing life to be able to live in the moment, laugh at the mishaps, and enjoy the "new guy." The "life-line" I found was literally this book. I read it over and over, as if it was some tonic that assuaged my fears about "doing everything right" and being a perfect mother. I can't tell you the number of times I quoted Lamott's writings to others. She helped me get through a difficult period and adjust. This book changed me. Read it. Lamott is a gifted writer who tells it like it (REALLY) is.

I now harbor a secret wish to have Anne Lamott as a friend. She tells the truth in this book. It may not be pretty, but it is honest and frequently hilarious. Parenting is hard, sometimes you don't like your kids, but you love them always. Lamott reminds you of that on every page of Operating Instructions. Now the "touchie-feelie perfect mommy" tribe will likely be shocked by some of what Lamott says, but it is honest, funny and often touching. I envy the woman her strength, her faith and her friends. Her son is about nine or ten now, I would love to see her confront his teenage years in a similar book.

You'll need to keep a box of Kleenex handy for this book because you'll either be laughing so hard tears stream down your face or you'll be sobbing over the tragically sad and tenderly touching passages.

Anne Lamott writes about her first year of single motherhood and her magnificent yet extremely trying baby boy, Sam. She's brutally honest about the good and the bad. If you have fluffy powder blue and pastel pink images of parenthood, brace yourself for some shattered illusions. Her nutty family, endearingly loyal friends, eccentric church congregation, and Marin County community of slightly off center characters create a real pageturner. Anne Lamott takes us on a privileged journey into her very peculiar mind. Despite what she claims in one paragraph, it really is a fun place to visit. Also woven through the story is the sorrowful tale of the failing health of her best friend. Be prepared to gobble this book up in one sitting.

_Operating Instructions_ is an uncompromising story from the true trenches of parenthood. There's no idealized "What to Expect..." nonsense here. Also, Anne is a Christian but is a radical, liberal, defiant one. For those of you who have somewhat narrow ideas about what it means to be a Christian, take a look at Annie...she'll twist your mind around like a pretzel. Some people may find Lamott's leftwing politics and theology offensive. Also, parents should be warned that this book contains very coarse language.

I first read this book when I was still single and had no children. I was hooked! Years later when I was pregnant with my son, I pulled it back off the shelf and used it almost like a reference book...a glimpse of things to come! During my son's first year, my husband and I often referred to passages from this book in our struggling efforts to maintain a sense of humor in the midst of newborn madness. I have reread _Operating Instructions_ many times over the years and have also recommended it to others and given it as a gift. I now recommend it to you...

This was the first of many enjoyable Anne Lamott books which I have read, and it is still my favorite. As far as I am concerned,it gets to the heart of what it means to be a sleep-deprived mother who nonetheless must move forward through each day, finding humor, meaning, and maintaining sanity. With each page I laugh, I cry, and I sigh, and find something with which I can relate. I, too, have entertained evil thoughts in the middle of the night when I have to get up to nurse for the umpteenth time, or wondered why my child is so angelic when people come over to admire her, yet give no indication that she is the very reason why I can barely put one foot front of the other because of fatigue. Anne's network of caring friends reminded me that it is indeed friends who brought her through all of her rough times of single-mom, post-addiction motherhood, and that friendship has many purposes, meanings and depths. She randomly (with divine guidance?) stumbled into her fine caring church one day and saved her life, or perhaps I should say that God and those fine people helped her save it. Whenever I wish to read a book for pure enjoyment, never want it to end, and want to risk waking up my husband with my laughter, I reach for Lamott. For those of you easily offended by swearing, please don't take offense at what you may find here. Anne is a deeply religious woman who loves God with all of her heart, but has taken a different, more difficult path from most to get where I wish that I was. How can one fault someone who was on the cover of "Today's Christian Woman" this past year? A white middle-aged woman? In dredlocks? Please run, don't walk, to get this book. Stongly consider grabbing her other favorite of mine, "Travelling Mercies", if you wish to find out more of what happened earlier in her life, what happened to Anne and Sam after "Operating Instructions", or if you are on your own faith walk (aren't we all in one way or another).

Anne Lamott is truly one of the most gifted writers of our time. She is funny, true blue, strong, and opinionated, poignant, and totally, disarmingly honest. In Operating Instructions, she chronicles the first year of her son, Sam's life. This is much, much more than a journal. It's the unfolding of real, true life.

Three years after giving up her addictions to drugs and alcohol, Lamott found herself pregnant-and single-at 35. The struggles she encountered with her new baby are so real and honest. She describes her love for him one day as being a feeling larger than anything she can describe-then the next day, being overwhelmed with the urge to leave him on the porch all night where his colicky cries won't reach her ears. All the while, she struggles to keep on top of her addictions, struggles with her spirituality, with the fact that Sam has no father in his life, with the loss of her own father to brain cancer, with money, and with her strong and conflicting emotions about motherhood. Finally, her best friend of over 20 years falls gravely ill, something that nearly shatters Lamott's faith. But through it all, she stays true, beyond all else. She is an amazing writer and person.

If you are a mother or want to be a mother, this is a must-read.

I bought this book while I was pregnant. I took it home and read it in one night.I laughed out loud so hard, my husband kept looking in on me. I lent it to my mother and she thought it was too sad and depressing. I have reread it so many times since my son was born, there are so many ways to relate to anne's experience. This book has inspired me by keeping my own journal and I have tried to enliven it with more heartfelt entries. I was touched by the honesty of her writing, feelings most people would be ashamed to admit. I have always wondered how Sam turned out and if Anne fell in love and got married. Please write a sequel.