Customer Reviews

Playing Catch with My Mother: Coming to Manhood When All the Rules Have Changed

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I really enjoyed Lichtenberg's book. I grew up in the 60's too, a decade and a half older than the author. His memories of that period revived mine. I could taste and smell the confusion and remember what it felt like as I, too, without guideposts to follow, tried to sort out what the change meant for me as a woman. I enjoyed the book for all the flap promised -- especially the "intensity of a child's perceptions," but oh, there was so much more: The freshness of his descriptions and analogies; the honesty of the dialog; the insights into a boy, which I would have expected, but equally strong insights into girls; and the ending, which was left just as endings should be. I can't wait for Lichtenberg's next book.

I am the same age as the author and am almost always bored by the self-absorbed, precious, and generally unoriginal spew that most of my contemporaries manage to have published or aired on TV or radio. It was so refreshing to read the experience of someone who actually THINKS about his feelings and who also understands that he has feelings about his thoughts. Balance, what a concept. And non-righteous, too.

It was a funny, poignant treat to read this book, which is so well-written, I really didn't care that, as one casual reviewer noted, he hasn't cured cancer or whatever. I didn't sense that this book was the ultimate in self-aggrandizement. The guy is just exploring his life and invites you to have a listen if you want.

When I finished reading the book, I felt like Greg could be a pal. I did not get the sense he had any illusions about this being the next Pulitzer Prize winner. But I do hope he feels that this book was a success, because it sure was touching and entertaining. And, lo, here is a man who seems to be a free thinker, not a victim of political correctness.

Greg Lichtenberg's memoir is one of the most insightful and enjoyable books I have read in years. A writer with a photographic memory and a flair for vivid yet unique descriptions, he evokes the details of my own childhood during the 1970's. But this remarkable story goes further than just memories. In a subtle, funny, and beautiful manner, Lichtenberg quietly guides the reader through a society that has very much changed over the past 30 years with regard to gender roles, the fracturing of the nuclear family, parents' expectations of their children and children's expectations of their parents. Through well-chosen and keenly described poignant moments, this book provided insight into not only my own life as a young girl raised during this confusing time, but also what it meant for my male peers. Lichtenberg is an extremely observant and talented writer, and I eagerly look forward to reading his future works.

Though I am female and well past 40, when I read this book I thought that somehow the author was writing about my life. The voice of the little boy captured my attention on page one because he was describing feelings I had as a little girl, watching the battleground that was our home. I understood the anger and confusion that came of broken dreams, broken promises, criticism and children who, though loved, were placed unwittingly into the fray. This was a beautiful memoir, beautifully written with humor to balance pathos. This book is not simply about a boy growing up and spilling his guts about bad times. It makes the reader think about the things that went wrong, and why they went wrong. Greg Lichtenberg speaks for men AND women of all ages.

The first few chapters, centering on Greg's childhood and the divorce of his parents, are admirably executed, and touching. As he moves into high school, becomes a member of The Click, and fumbles through myriad relationships (sexual and non), I became less and less intrigued. The members of his peer group are so marginally outlined and so many in number that I had a hard time remembering from chapter to chapter exactly which person he was talking about. The book pulls out of a slow tailspin with the long closing chapter about Tasha. She is a worthy character, and his actions toward her are both deplorable and empathetic. But there is little to no link between his chaotic home life and how he treats his girlfriend as a teenager. More exploration and explanation is needed here. The book paid too much attention to setting up his friendships with people we really don't care about, and no time at all on his post-high school years. The book ends with an act that Lichtenberg must see as the cruelest thing he's ever done, but it's not all that cruel. I was much more interested in his own suppressed violence, his risible contempt toward the girl who loved him. He leaves it to the reader to establish where that violence and contempt came from, and how he was damaged by it.

In his epilogue, Greg states that he did get married, and no one believed that he ever would. A part two might be welcome, along with some deeper insight into how he was affected by his mother's feminism and his father's inability to control his rage. When and how did Greg become a man who could trust and love another person? We don't know. Maybe he doesn't either.

I was worried when I picked this up and read the back cover that what would follow would be either a sappy tale of how great his mother was or a horrific story about the trials of sons raised by mothers.

I found neither.

The accounts seemed honest. Especially in dealing with the author's developing sexuality and resulting confusion. There is no glorification or victimhood here -- he hurts people, he gets hurt. What we see instead is a boy coming to terms with what he percieves as two conflicting desires: he wants to respect women, but he is also sexually attracted to them.

He shows us the path he walked on the way to manhood, no more and no less. We don't receive any solid answers. We sense, at the end, that the seeming conflict of these two impulses is resolved within him, but it is a complex relationship not easily broken down and understood in the black and white of adolescence.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of memoirs-or, rather, the process by which one decides to write one. It seems as if there should be a process of assessment, during which one asks one's self in one's life has been remarkable enough to warrant the killing of trees and the spilling of ink. Questions such as "have I contributed something to society, such as a string of brilliant films, a cure for a disease or at least sold my body to a well-known film star for a bit of cash and an Enquirer headline?" or "have I made it successfully through life despite some horrifying ailment or without a nose or being Paul Reiser?" or even "have I the writing ability to make my fairly average life appealing and entertaining to those who have never met me?". If more people stopped, took a moment and quietly and honestly asked themselves these questions, we'd have fewer books like this bit of self-indulgent fluff cluttering up the remainders table.

I never thought I could read a man's perspective on gender issues -- or on women! -- without gagging, but this book was insightful as well as a good story. The characters were really believable and the plot had me riveted. While his experiences were bittersweet and not every page was easy for me to read, the book gave me food for thought about the men I know. I loved it!

This is a great story. I loved how he mixed the unremarkable (day camp crushes) with the more unusual memories (contact high with hippie parents!) to make a compelling, realistic life story that I felt like I lived alongside him. Beautifully written, a wonderful quick read -- I recommend it.

Gracelessly executed, and devoid of charm, this novel may as well have been subtitled "My Unremarkable Life". Wow, he had a clique in high school. Wow, he touched a bunch of teenaged girls' breasts. Where is the insight? Where is the thing which separates this from millions of other people's experiences? Oh, it was on the Upper East Side? Well then, by all means, we're dying to hear. I bought this book with the expectation that it would shed some light on the confusion of men who grew up in a time when gender roles were being redefined, but all I found was a shallow recounting of an unremarkable life. Don't waste your money.