The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship [Paperback]

Jacquelyn Mitchard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999

For years, readers of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have been calling their mothers, boyfriends, and sisters to say, "See? That's exactly what I meant!" Now syndicated nationwide, Jacquelyn Mitchard's column, "The Rest of Us," charms her readers each week. In this wise and sparkling volume that collects more than a decade of dispatches, Mitchard's longtime readers and fans of her bestselling novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, can share the exuberant wisdom of a woman and a writer who has seen it all.

In the spirit of Judith Viorst, Anna Quindlen, and the late Erma Bombeck, Mitchard reaches for the heart and mind simultaneously. Spanning everything from gun laws and garage sales to teen telephone habits, The Rest of Us brings together the best of many years of writing and living.

* Mitchard's novel The Most Wanted will be published by Signet in June 1999
* The movie The Deep End of the Ocean will be released Spring 1999
* The Deep End of the Ocean was the first selection of Oprah's Book Club

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A beguiling collection of sometimes insightful, often amusing columns from a mother of five who is also a widow, a bestselling author, and not Erma Bombeck. There is no question that the late Bombeck is missed for her heartfelt and pungent commentaries. But the void that she has left does not have to be filled by an Erma manqu‚. Mitchard, author of the novel that Oprah turned into a bestseller, The Deep End of the Ocean (1996), is of another generation and another lifestyle, the now-single mother, one of whose children was adopted after her husband died. Her syndicated newspaper column is in some ways the shallow end of her ocean, although it deals with concerns that she will undoubtedly address in greater depth in future novels. The author proclaims that she and her audience are all those women who are not Martha Stewart, not the girlfriend who was both calculus prodigy and cheerleader, but ``the rest of us.'' The column, she says, has been her anchor, the quasi-diary in which she begins to confront the questions of, for instance, death and adoption, both for herself and her children. But she also reflects on--and occasionally skewers-- such concerns as women's magazines that herald make-work crafts (elves from detergent bottles) versus men's magazines that deal with really useful stuff (building shelves, repairing light fixtures), being expelled from the car pool, and meeting the mother of the baby you are about to adopt. Some of her reflections are funny, some aim for the jugular, some are genuinely moving, like those on life as a widow. Cherry-picked from newspaper columns, this collection is necessarily formulaic in style and uneven in content. Read it, nevertheless: It's written by a woman who dredges for what matters. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile

Mitchard reads selections from her collection of newspaper columns written, she says, for those of us who are not Martha Stewart and were not the popular cheerleader who was good at calculus--that is--for the rest of us. She addresses a variety of topics, including raising children, coping with the death of her husband from cancer and the attitudes of friends and family when she decided to adopt her fifth child after his death. (Most thought her insane.) She reads in a clear Mid-western accent with an easy grace, letting her emotions enhance each piece. Seemingly unselfconscious about sharing her weaknesses as well as her strengths, and her failures as well as her successes, she moves, amuses and sometimes startles the listener. At the end, one wishes for a full-length audio and more of Mitchard's observations. M.A.M. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140274979
• ISBN-13: 978-0140274974
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,008,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jacquelyn Mitchard was born in Chicago. Her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was published in 1996, becoming the first selection of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club and a number one New York Times bestseller. Eight other novels, four children's books and six young adult novels followed, including The Midnight Twins, Still Summer, All We Know of Heaven, and The Breakdown Lane. A former daily newspaper reporter, Mitchard now is a contributing editor for Parade Magazine, and frequently writes for such publications as More magazine and Real Simple. Her essays and short stories have been widely anthologized. An adjunct professor in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Fairfield University, she lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their nine children

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Familiar stories, November 16, 2001

By 

BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship (Paperback)

I love the title of this book, a collection of Jacqueline Mitchard's newspaper columns, which are published every Sunday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

She has had quite a life: adopted a child, then was able to have three children of her own. Her husband died, quite young and very quickly, of cancer. She then adopted another child, the story of which was very moving. She then re-married and adopted yet again. In addition to writing a weekly column, she has also written several best-selling novels.

I think her columns are very well done and usually strike a note that is familiar to my life or the life of someone I know. I actually like them more than her fiction. The columns are alternately nostalgic, funny, wry, sad, bittersweet. She is a very clever observer of family life and the things in our world which affect families.

Here are the titles of some of her columns/articles in this book:

*Loneliness of the Long-Distance Talker
*Dare to say "Underwear" - about ordering from Victoria's Secret catalog when a male order-taker answers the phone
*My Son the Warrior
*When You're Out with the In Crowd
*The Mother of My Child
*Tragedy in a Bottle
*My Best Buds, the Brontes
*The Citadel:Disgrace Under Pressure
*Home Cooking in the Drive-thru Lane
*Tupperware is Life
*The Great Green Garage Sale

I think almost anyone would enjoy reading these columns and highly recommend it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Rest of Us are heroic, May 31, 2000

By 

Rebecca Brown "rebeccasreads" (Clallam Bay, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship (Paperback)

I've never read Jacquelyn Mitchard's columns in newspapers, what I did read was her brilliant first novel "The Deep End of the Ocean". Then I opened this book, read "Better Scared Than Scarred" & I couldn't put it down. Jacqelyn Mitchard is a kindred spirit, someone with an ineffably wry, dry, poignant sense of humor. Who sees an outrage & decides to humor it; who has life catch at her throat & writes like her life depended on it, which it does. A must read for anyone who thinks their own life is drab! For my full review please go to: ( )

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable and often wisdom-filled read, June 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Rest of Us (Hardcover)

I found "The Rest of Us" interesting and very easy to get through; even though this book is in fact a compilation of her Sunday columns (for which this book is named) rather than a novel, reading it was not a laborious essay-after-essay task. Mitchard's essays often hold quite a bit of truth, humor, and wisdom in them, as well as emotional power. She also did manage to convince me that she's just an ordinary woman like "the rest of us" despite the fact that she, extraordinarly, was a widow and active journalist--with five children, no less!--when she wrote many of these pieces. The only problem I encountered while reading was that her sentences sometimes seemed a bit convoluted and difficult to follow; her overall points were usually clear, however. I plan to buy this book for my mom, as I have found that Mitchard is, above all, a mother--her maternal side shines through in many of her pieces and could prove to be helpful for any mother.