Compelling and Fascinating

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	• Her Last Death: A Memoir Susanna Sonnenberg Scribner, 2008 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 54 reviews view larger image
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Compelling and Fascinating

I found this book to be compelling and fascinating. Compelling because of the strength and seeming veracity of the narrative - and fascinating for its even-handed dissection of the damaging narcissism of the author's mother, which plagues and dominates her childhood. We root for Susana, weep with her and utlimately exult in her fragile, imperfect liberation.

"My Mother, Myself"???

As I read this book, I couldn't help but remember the book from the 70's, "My Mother, Myself". This daughter, in this reader's opinion, becomes what she seemingly most abhors, her mother. By recreating for the reader, her numerous sexual exploits and manipulative behavior of those around her, she begins to sound more and more like her mother. She does not seem particularly interested in redemption or self-realization and I found the book troubling for this reason. I kept asking myself why a mother of two would put all these details into her book - won't her children grow up and be subjected to the same salicious details of her life as she was to her mother's life? I am pretty shocked that her husband was willing to go along with this book's publication.

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Disappointing...

* Spoilers*

Like other reviewers, I was drawn to "Her Last Death" because it sounded like the kind of dysfunctional family memoir that keeps me turning pages. I appreciate anyone who can honestly look back at a horrendous childhood. It's so much healthier than glossing over appalling human behavior. Having read and loved "Running with Scissors" and "The Glass Castle" I was expecting something similar.

Initially, I loved the book. The New York in the '70s setting, the outrageous Daphne (truly the mother from hell), the shocking revelations. Soon, though, this seemed like a story stretched very thin. The bulk of the book is one sexual exploit after another, each one slightly more shocking than the last. Several, such as a seduction of brothers and of an orthodox rabbi, seemed fabricated. By the time Susanna was a faux lesbian in Missoula, I'd had enough.

As if sensing the reader's boredom, the author ends the tedious sexual exploits and shifts into her own struggles with motherhood. The parallels are worth plumbing... is parenting so inherantly difficult that Susanna can forgive her own mother for her mistakes? This section (making up roughly the last 70 pages) has some bite to it. However, Sonnenberg can't resist a cheap ending, which gives a false sense that she has learned from her mother's mistakes and has exchanged her mother's life of decadence for traditional domestic bliss. I'm am skeptical that she has really overcome the values she was raised with.

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Warning Spoiler!

This does contain spoilers, so if you haven't read it yet and you are definitely going to stop now!

I read this hoping for another Glass Castle. I really did enjoy it, it kept me intrigued almost to the end. BUT the author is so self absorbed, she makes herself out to be a victim turned sex addict all the while patting herself on the back. Her teacher says she is the sexiest woman he's ever seen, basically every man she meets has never had better. The end was really disappointing, I kept thinking of her poor kids if they ever read this! She makes her marriage seem fake, talks freely of an abortion, as well as her frustration and dislike for her oldest son. Then she speaks of the son fondly for the next couple of chapters, but the other son was referred to as 'Daniel's baby brother'
She thinks marijuana is awful, but cocaine is fine, she's taught how to masturbate at 8 and even gets her own Penthouse magazines. It wasn't Glass House but I still recommend it.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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