Family: American Writers Remember Their Own - Hardcover

Fiffer, Sharon Sloan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679442472 ISBN 13: 9780679442479

Publisher: Pantheon, 1996

Synopsis

Meet the eccentric, eclectic family members of seventeen of America's finest writers in this dazzling, deeply moving collection of memories.

Take advice from Alice Hoffman's wise grandmother, Lillie Lulkin. Keep watch over lone children with Brent Staples. Share with Bob Shacochis and his wife the heartbreaking sadness of two people longing to have a child. You can also listen in as Chang-rae Lee and his mother speak their own language; carefully contemplate life through the eyes of Whitney Otto's beloved, irascible cat; discover if Marion Winik is really, truly related to either Charlie Chaplin or Jann Wenner; and barhop with a five-year-old Stuart Dybeck and his Polish Grandfather.

In joining this literary reunion, be prepared to discover your own sense of family history. Whether considering relations by blood, by marriage, by choice, or by chance, each writer here has something to share: secrets, desires, sorrows, and joys. And in this Family, you will find that the pleasure of reading is much more than relative.

Contributors include: Edwidge Danticat, Beverly Donofrio, Stuart Dybeck, Edward Hoagland, Alice Hoffman, bell hooks, Chang-rae Lee, Elizabeth McCracken, Whitney Otto, Jayne Anne Phillips, Bob Shacochis, Brent Staples, Deborah Tannen, Geoffrey Wolff, and Marion Winik.

The editors of Family are donating a portion of their royalties to two organizations: The Max Warburg Courage Curriculum, a values-based literacy program for sixth graders in the Boston Public School system; and Chicago Youth Centers, which works with young people in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, assisting them in becoming responsible and productive individuals..

About this title

About the Author

Sharon Sloan Fiffer and Steve Fiffer are writing and editing collaborators, most recently on Home. They live in Evanston, Illinois, with their three children.

From Kirkus Reviews

A collection of eloquent essays solicited from high-powered writers that nevertheless smacks a bit of ``What I Did on My Summer Vacation,'' except that the subject is family. The Fiffers (editors of last year's anthology Home) have convinced some substantial talent to choose a pivotal moment or person in the circle they consider family and write about it. Except for Bob Shacochis, who writes about the torture of overcoming infertility, the contributors to this volume accentuate the positive. When nothing else will serve, Whitney Otto, the author of the novel How to Make an American Quilt, chooses her cat Kali to exemplify family bonds. But it may be that these writers have voiced their various family-oriented rages and confusion in earlier works and can now discuss the idea of family from a more benevolent perspective. Elizabeth McCracken's charming essay is a celebration of her first cousin twice removed, also an Elizabeth, who was a dancer and a single mother long before it was fashionable. Alice Hoffman writes about advice from her grandmother; Deborah Tannen about missing her father; Beverly Donofrio about a dynamic neighbor. Other contributors include Brent Staples on his Chicago boyhood, Edwidge Danticat on her father's life as a cabdriver, and bell hooks on her wonderfully eccentric grandparents, who were together for more than 70 years. Geoffrey Wolff's lively entry on his father, Duke, nicely captures the ambivalence of family relationships: ``always fluid . . . to be emotionally exact is to be inconsistent.'' A reassuring read, these skillfully crafted pieces plumb the nurturing aspect of family as opposed to the dark side (neglect, abuse, abandonment) that frequently fuels contemporary writers. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0679442472
• ISBN 13: 9780679442479
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 253