Customer Reviews

Sweet and Low: A Family Story

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

They say revenge is sweet. How about revenge is "Sweet and Low," a not very flattering account of family and fortune? Author Rich Cohen evidently had get-even in mind as he makes it plain that he doesn't much care for members of his family and he certainly didn't like being disinherited.

Nonetheless, scandal and vitriol often add spice to the listen and this is the case with Cohen's narrative. His grandfather, Ben Eisenstadt, began it all when he opened a diner across from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Ever on the lookout for an opportunity, he saw the wisdom of putting sugar into little packets rather than having it sit in clogged glass table dispensers. As the tale goes, he pitched his brainstorm to a sugar company that claimed it as their own.

Angry but undaunted Eisenstadt then came up with the idea for Sweet `N Low, which was offered initially as an aid for diabetics but soon swiped by diet crazed Americans. The family was in high cotton.......until studies linked saccharin to cancer. As they say, there goes the business. Or, as Cohen would say, "Fourteen rats get cancer and nothing will ever be the same."

Once corruption was discovered within the company court battles ensued, Cohen's mother's side lost, and their names were whited out in wills.

Cohen may be bitter but he's also a dandy writer ("Lake Effect" and "Tough Jews"). His descriptions of family from the kind of woman "who wanted you to think she never went to the bathroom" to Uncle Marvin who said to call him Uncle Marvelous are hilarious.

The highs and lows of Sweet `N Low isn't exactly The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire but it is an interesting and often smile provoking listen.

- Gail Cooke

This book is large. In it, the writer, Rich Cohen, disinherited from the vast sweet n low fortune, comes to see the history of his family, and the history of our time, in the little white granules that sweeten our coffee, but leave a bitter aftertaste. It is told with panache and humor, and also with a great deal of compassion, even toward those who did his side of the family wrong. It is an American story as old as the west, or as old as the Great Gatsby. It is the story of the American dream, and what happens when that dream comes true. It is a be careful what you wish for story, or, as my grandmother used to say, "We were happier when we were poor."

Rich Cohen's new book "Sweet and Low" is a breezy and fun-filled romp through the broken fragments of a family that has more ditzy characters than an offbeat novel. The author states on the back cover, "to be disinherited is to be set free" and in his liberation the readers of his book have much about which to cheer. Cohen is wickedly humorous and spares no one and no detail. He gives "dysfunction" a new name.

Ostensibly a story about the discovery of the first widely used sugar substitute, the Cumberland Packing Corporation which packages it and the company's successes and failures, "Sweet and Low" is really about the men and women in the Eisenstadt/Cohen family and what life was like under the surface. Patriarch Benjamin Eisenstadt, the hard luck/good luck founder of the company is the rock that holds the family together. Beyond that, look out. There's the agoraphobic, housebound Aunt Gladys, Uncle ("marvelous") Marvin, the eternal man-child son of Ben, vitriolic grandma Betty and suicidal great-grandma, Bubba. Reading "Sweet and Low" is like watching a tv variety show without the tv. Yet it is author Cohen who really puts everything in perspective. What makes this book so enjoyable is the writing and it is, indeed, very good. Cohen has a way of not only grabbing the reader's attention, but holding it, then guiding it through the twists and turns of his family's "behavior". It is a tour de force. While the author allows himself some bitter feelings (perhaps more wistful, had everyone gotten along) he nonetheless has some nice things to say. His ability to stick the knife in cleanly is balanced by a notion that while people may have bad attributes they aren't necessarily bad people.

"Sweet and Low" could have been just a kiss-and-tell book about a family gone awry. It's much better than that and it's due to Rich Cohen and his marvelous way of telling the family story. I loved "Sweet and Low" and encourage readers to purchase a copy and enjoy it.

What a great read! You almost can't put it down long enough to think, "What if my grandparents had a hundred million dollars and left me nothing?" But that's just as well, because by the end of the book, you know exactly how that kind of thing turns out.

The fulcrum of the story--both in terms of the dynamics of the family and also as their most neatly distilled image--is Aunt Gladys, who lives reclusively in her frigid brooklyn bedroom (she keeps it at meat locker temperatures) and, though partially crippled, still waits on her emotionally withholding mother; amid Cohen's delightfully comedic descriptions, Gladys is a ghoul who wanders in off the heath: Gladys, who ties up and strikes her own mother; Gladys, who in her frigid inner-sanctum has recreated the conditions of the womb that bore her.

Gladys and her mom are worth many tens of millions of dollars, but, as the saying goes, there are something things that money just can't buy.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book is the scandal that the Sweet & Low company got caught up in. Cohen shows that money is just as corrosive to the brain as it is to the soul, as he chronicles how his uncle "Marvelous" Marvin Eisenstadt brought an organized crime figure into the business, was raided by the FBI, and nearly lost the whole kitty.

Cohen writes that the one benefit he has derived from being disinherited is the ability to write this book (and it is a great story), but his real fortune is in having been delivered from the influence of these people at an early age, and thus, having been given the ability to lead a happy and normal life.

Almost every decade a work is published that rivits our eyes to its pages and feeds an urge for more. Such a book is "SWEET AND LOW" by Rich Cohen. What makes it so appealing is that at its core is the nucleor Eisenstadt family.

The titular head is Benjamin Eisenstadt who gave us the sugar substitute SWEET N' LOW. The real power in this matriarchy, however is his wife Betty who believed that love is a scarce commodity that could be depleted and so should be doled out sparingly.

Author Cohen has taken hard facts (uncovered through research and interviews) and made them come alive, giving us memorable portraits of Ben and Betty's children: the reclusive yet controlling Aunt Gladys, Unknowing Uncle Marvelous, morally constipated Uncle Ira and finally his caring and naive mother Ellen, who is an easy mark for her greedy siblings.

After Ben died, his wife inexplicably changed their will disinheriting Ellen and her issue, one of whom is Rich Cohen. Ah ha! This should explain the author's motive, but surprisingly his prose is even handed, objective and supported by concrete evidence.

Above all, "SWEET AND LOW" ia a ripping read that is not only funny, but provocative. At the end you find yourself wanting more -- especially the answers to these questions:
1. Why was Rich's Mom and her children "really" disenherited?
2. Why did Uncle Marvelous compared to Martha Stewart and Leona Helsley, get off so lightly?
3. What else did the author find out that he left out or was edited from the book (page 12, "No, no. It's fine. He's not asking about that.")?

Having listened to Mr. Cohen on NPR bemoan the loss of his extended family and re-reading the end of this book, I believe there's more to be told. So perhaps he can give us "the rest of the story" with a sequel, "SWEET AND LOW - PART II."

Very highly recommended.

Rich Cohen writes about how Ben Eisenstadt and his son Marvin built a successful business that gave us SWEET and LOW and then by either "generous stupidity" or excessive greed allowed it to be looted and almost destroyed by mobsters and convicted felons.
The author, the disinherited grandson of the patriarch, uses court records, depositions and taped interviews to detail much of the story. Surprisingly, Cohen is not bitter. In fact, he seems to have not included some disreputable and shameful material out of consideration for his "former cousins" and their children as well as his Aunt. Albeit, based upon a few of their bitter single star "reviews", they don't deserve it. Overall, this is an award winning book by a gifted storyteller with a keen eye and delicious sense of humor. Read it, laugh and learn.

Normally I steer clear of non-fiction, but I couldn't help picking up this book. It is a great read. It's not just about sweet n'low, either, although you'll learn lots. It's about family, brooklyn, the mob, the yin of the sugar industry, and the yang of the diet industry. It is much, much more than a memoir; it's about America and the 20th century experience. The family story woven into this is as compelling as it is devastating. I think everyone can identify with all the pieces of the story, which Cohen weaves into a seamless whole. Unlike the pink packets, this "Sweet and Low" will leave you satisfied.

This is the story of simple inventions, the sugar packet and Sweet n Low, that changed the lives of everyone, and ripped apart a family. Mostly it's about people, how they love and torture each other. As they say, no one can be as brutal as the members of your own family. It reminded me of one of those great old movies, like A Season in the Sun or Dark Victory, that starred some great actress like Bette Davis, and that told the story of a whole age by telling the story of a single person. It's tremendous fun.

Rich Cohen is that rare author who can tell the tale of his less-than-perfect family without venom. Throughout there is plenty of honest emotion, sorrow, and confusion. After all, Cohen and his mother were coldly cut off and cast out of the "Sweet'n Low" Family for nothing more than trying to get Grandpa Ben decent medical care. There are also fair helpings of discovery, joy, and insight. This book is not a "Revenge Memoir", it really comes closer to a catharsis in the telling. Cohen in essence manages to weave three books into a single volume, presenting a complete Eisenstadt Family Saga, tangents and all, which along with the history of Sweet'n Low and a tantalizing assortment of vignettes (history of sugar, family stories, etc) form a big picture.

Cohen paints his characters in colorful terms. It is easy for me to picture Ben Eisenstadt brainstorming over crusty sugar dispensers in his diner, then exitedly pitching his concept of sugar packets to Big Business only to have his idea swiped, uncredited. We see a man of no little resolve regrouping to find another way, making a way for himself by adapting and seizing opportunity by the horns--in the form of powdered sacchrine. Who would have thought, Nu?

I enjoyed Cohen's writing in "Tough Jews" and "The Avengers". The man is a natural storyteller. His books for me, are always difficult to put down. This one is no exception, I would rate it his best work to date because it is such a personal undertaking told in such unvarnished terms. Missing is any attempt to whitewash himself or others. Plenty of Sweet moments to balance out the Bitter ones, enough Highs to go with the Lows, loads of drama and plenty of rewards. I can't begin to touch on the depth of this one! Excellent!

Mr. Cohens' relatives like to post reviews. And their angry work - the bitter, "anonymous'" words of people whose lives' great achievement was birth and a bankable last name - couldn't be more clear if they were signed 'Eisenstadt.' (Look for the one-stars.)

The "Editoral Reviews" collected above give a good idea of the book's strengths and defects -- these writers are objective readers not related to the author by blood. The New York Times' "A small classic" is a representative sample. So Mr. Cohen's cousins' critical response can be dismissed as what statisticians call "outliers" -- that is, results too far beyond the norm to be considered.

And what about their moral response? The title of their reviews here include "Bad Taste" and "I Want My Money Back." This is a note they contiually strike. (One, with the admonishing title 'Bad Karma,' they sign with the first name of Mr. Cohen's father. A nice, Luca Brasi touch.) The content is as unmistakable as it is repetitive. Mr. Cohen is derided as wanting "money he has never worked for." Mr. Cohen is a "wealthy child," like many "who feel that they shouldn't have to work either."

Mr. Cohen began publishing in The New Yorker magazine when he was 24. He published about a dozen short articles there over 18 months, while holding a day-job as a magazine messenger. This was among the lowest-salaried positions available at that publication. Mr. Cohen has since written for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and Harper's Magazine in the late '90s, he co-wrote a screenplay with Mick Jagger and Martin Scorcese. Since 1998, Cohen has published five books which have been translated into about ten languages. If Mr. Cohen operates as a "poor little rich boy," it's in a league where those boys put in eighteen hours days on the seven-day schedule. It's a schedule, in fact, that his own grandfather might have recognized and taken pride in.

The Eisenstadts of Mr. Cohen's book - his anonymous and dependable reviewers - inherited a large fortune put together by their grandfather. They inherited it without work. It did indeed come to them "simply for being born." Really, their moral response is an interesting one.

One could read "Sweet and Low" - admire its prose, its organization, its presentation, its moral sense - and be troubled by one doubt. You could not be sure about the character of the opposite side of Cohen's family, the Eistenstadts. That is, the character of the inheritors. The reviews below remove that doubt. When a paperback edition of the book appears, they ought to be included as an addendum. Thank you, Cohen cousins, for enlarging and enriching this reader's experience of "Sweet and Low."