Customer Reviews

Someone Not Really Her Mother

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

 

 

This is a bittersweet story of a woman who is slowing losing her memory while she resides in a nursing home. Born French, she departed for France as a teenager, sent by her parents during the Holocaust. She worked as an au pair in England ultimately to find that she had lost her family to the concentration camps. She had married an Englishman, lost him to the war and left to come to America with her young baby.

The first person narrative allows us insight into how Hannah's memory of present day events fades while resurrecting past experiences very vividly. We learn of the frustrations of her daughter and grandchildren to hold on to Hannah and keep her in the present. She has flashes of memory that within minutes fails her once again.

The characters are well developed and the story interesting. What I found interesting is that Hannah in the end is not depressed because of her situation but rather feels "does it matter if I don't know the right words?" Her grandchild struggles onto her bed and whispers a new word he has learned into her ear. She holds him close and smells his sweet child smell and is satisfied and reflecting on her life she states, "To love that went well".

I would recommend this book for book clubs; in the end it is not a depressing tale but a window into an elderly mind.

If you've ever driven past narrowly spaced trees with bright sun sharply angled, you will understand Hannah Pearl's condition: light/darkness, light/dark, wending so fast that one becomes dizzy after 30 seconds. Hannah, too, is in/out all day, from the time she spends at Tikkun, a nursing home, to her brief jaunts with Miranda, the daughter whom she refers to as "maman" halfway through this short novel. Sometimes Hannah can recall reality: her daughter Mir, her 20somethings granddaughters. Mostly, though, she lives on the periphery of reality, where her own mind creates the most vivid and understandable scenarios.
Chessman's style, as in "Lydia Cassat," a previous novel, reminds one a bit of Virginia Woolf: the writing flows lyrically, at times like poetry. There are numerous references to color, flowers, and other inhabitants of nature. I love how she weaves Hannah's French language into her thoughts and utterances, and how confused the other characters are by her native language. The scene in which Hannah is lost in a drugstore is particularly moving, as is the final scene with Hannah and her great-grandson.
I want to send a copy of this to a young woman who was in the same writing class as I was this summer. She was writing a lovely, heartbreaking memoir of her grandmother's gradual decline into Alzheimer's. Although Chessman's book is not a memoir, technically, it reads much like one--a very good one.

I buy books for my wife because she can never make up her mind from the thousands available. Generally I buy only those books that received good customer reviews. But this one I bought on a whim since there weren't yet any customer reviews available. Well she really liked it. And since I am so big on customer reviews I will tell you about a few others I bought that she just loved. She loved A YEAR SINCE YESTERDAY by George Edward Zintel. That book came in soft-cover (not paperback even though it is listed as such) and was one of the best books she has ever read. Another is NIGHTS OF RAIN AND STARS by Maeve Bichney. BOTH of those books she has read several times. I also give books as Christmas presents, and I would recommend any of those I mentioned as gifts.

Yes, Harriet Chessman is a wonderful writer. And yes, Someone Not Really Her Mother has deserved all of the critical acclaim it has received. What I love about this book, though, is the delicacy with which it illuminates the relationship between middle-aged women and their mothers. Book groups will find much to discuss here about their own lives. You may buy this book because of Chessman's elegant prose and her storytelling, but you will remember it long after for its insights into the changing bond between mothers and daughters as they both age.

This is a story about Hannah. She is in an old age home.

She has flashbacks to her life as a young fifteen year old girl who lived during the war in France during the Holocaust. She was sent to England by her parents during the war for safety. She left behind her little sister, Emmma who is frequently in her flashbacks.

Hannah has a daughter who is very loving to her, and two grandaughter who are also very loving and try to help her, but sometimes to no avail. The become the "family" that Hannah has left behind, in one of her delusional flashbacks.

She has dementia and one day finds herself in a drug store with slippers, her walker and her sweater and is very confused. The workers in the store try to help her. She becomes very upset and only talks in french to the attendants. In her mind she is reliving a terrible night that happened to her.

The book is good, not great, it does give you some insight into a person who has a altzheimer's disease. It is very sad that she thinks the reason why her parents sent her away is because they didn't love her.

It is a fast read, and emotional also.

The difference between the many very good works on a topic and a masterpiece on that topic is that the masterpiece penetrates so deeply that it awakens questions the topic itself, more narrowly or less profoundly addressed, does not inherently raise. Ms. Chessman's book makes us wonder not just what it's like to care for or even to be an Alzheimer's sufferer, but what the relationship is between memory and human connectedness, between consciousness and reality, even between mind and soul. In this case, it's also an efficient masterpiece -- a short book, almost a prose poem -- in which, literally, even the punctuation can be devastatingly touching and intellectually provocative.

Hannah Pearl resides in a nursing home in Connecticut because Hannah drifts from this time to others as her battle with memory loss slowly wins.
Hannah's life has not been easy; first she loses her family in the Holocaust, then her husband in the war, but Hannah was a fighter and made a life for herself and her daughter; a daughter whose heart aches at the emotional loss of her mother.
This book is Hannah's story. Told through her memory flashbacks, and seen through her daughter and granddaughters eyes as they struggle to understand not just what is happening to Hannah, but what she wants to leave with them before she departs this life.
It is an emotional read but one that will touch your heart with truths as past and present become one and you realize that life is precious for those who know love.

I was very disappointed in this little book, because I loved Chessman's other two novels so much. Whether you liked this book or not, let it lead you to the luminous Ohio Angels or her masterpiece, Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper.

This is a short but fulfilling story, heart-breaking at times. Hannah Pearl is living in a nursing home in Connecticut and no longer is able to keep in mind in the present. She drifts back to France, where she lived before WWII, when her parents sent her to England to be safe.Hannah married a RAF pilot who was killed and then moved to America. Hannah's daughter, Miranda does not understand why her mother is speaking French and keeps trying to bring her mother back to the present. Her two grand-daughter's Fiona and Ida also deal with Hannah in different ways. Fiona ignores and Ida tries to find out what they never knew about their grandmother.

my review: This was a beautifully written book, lyrical and touching. I liked how the author was able to show how all the characters deal with Hannah's illness, but also how Hannah herself feels. I felt she captured the frustration and confusion one must feel when dealing with Alzheimer's. We get bits and pieces of Hannah's life as if putting together a puzzle. The novel is only 160 pages but she accomplishes what it takes others 400.

my rating 5/5

As I read this, I was thinking of my relationship with my mom--how taking her to buy something as simple as lunch is a long journey fraught with all kinds of potholes. How I often find myself in the role of "mother" rather than "daughter." Chessman does an amazing job with the world of her characters, and especially that of the elderly mother. She does what no one else has done--creating sympathy and understanding out of the confusing world of Alzheimer's. I was riveted.