レビュー

• The instability of identity is front and center—done cleverly

  Memory, adulthood and bad choices, women’s minds and bodies as sites of control and agency, slowly getting the reader to question everything about who we are and how we know who we are in the most wonderfully meta kind of way. Plus prose like thought, sometimes circling, sometimes punctuated.

• Wow!

  This book is incredibly touching and well-written. MOTHER DAUGHTER WIDOW WIFE is the story of Wendy Doe and Elizabeth (Lizzie) Epstein. Wendy is admitted as a person willing to submit to experimental observation at the Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research, which is maintained by Dr. Benjamin Strauss. Epstein is selected to be in charge of Doe. Wendy Doe suffers from a dissociative fugue, which means she's got amnesia. She doesn't know who she is or where she came from. Lizzie asks Doe questions, gets her tested with MRIs and CAT scans and other batteries of testing. Doe doesn't remember anything. She feels safe at the Meadowlark; it's much better than the psych ward she was forced to spend time in while doctors decided what to do with her. Isn't that scary? Not knowing who you are, where you belong, what your life is? Oh WOW, it just hit me that we, as humans, all struggle with not knowing who we are or where we belong or our purpose in life. Amazing! At some point in their relationship, Wendy and Lizzie become some-what friends. Dr. Strauss sees Wendy as a project, a non-person almost. Lizzie sees Wendy as a real person with emotions and thoughts, not as an experiment. At some point in their relationship, Lizzie and Dr. Strauss become lovers. Yep. The good old "professor and student/fellow" affair of the heart (or not the heart if you catch my drift). The time Epstein and Doe spend together is fascinating to read. Wendy has to learn how to do basic things again, things like shop and go to the movies and get around in the world. Lizzie helps guide her into life, as well as trying to figure out who Wendy Doe really is. The book is split between the months Wendy is in the Meadowlark, then it fast forwards to the relationship between Strauss and Epstein, and then there's a period of time with Lizzie and Alice. Alice is Wendy's daughter; Wendy remembers who she is a goes back to that life, giving birth to a daughter (Alice). I don't want to spoil the plot...suffice it to say it's a bit tangled up between Wendy Doe, Elizabeth Epstein and Alice and Dr. Strauss. I have to admit that the ending caught me off guard! It makes sense now but at the time, it blew me away. I've not read Wasserman before; she has a book out, GIRLS ON FIRE, but I haven't read it. I think I might get it on my Kindle. Wasserman is an excellent author and this book is first-rate. Definitely one to recommend!

• A Literary Soap Opera and Psycohological Mystery

  What if a talented literary writer wrote a Soap (aka Soap Opera) with many of the attending tropes and themes? Well, I think that is what Robin Wasserman has done successfully with her new novel, “Mother Daughter Widow Wife”! We have the Soap staples: an amnesiac, adultery, sex, obsession, complicated relationships, mystery, danger, and maybe not an evil twin – but close! Don’t let any of that put you off! This is a well-written psychological mystery well worth your time. After a laboratory failure that ruins years of her research on memory, Lizzie Epstein relocates from her life and relationship in California to her hometown of Philadelphia, to join a “brilliant” scientist Dr. Benjamin Strauss who asks her to head up an investigation of “Wendy Doe”, a woman who was found on a bus with total amnesia. Alice, is Wendy’s daughter who is looking for answers to her mother’s sudden disappearance. HOWEVER, just when you think this is going to be a fairly straight-forward narrative, Wasserman projects the reader 20 years into the future! I thought: “Ah! This just got interesting!” We go back and forth through time to learn about the identities of Wendy and Alice and the nature of Dr. Strauss’ research and relationships. I don’t want to spoil anything because dramatic things happen that I did not foresee (like in a good Soap!) Told through various female points of view (mother, daughter, widow, wife), over past and present time lines, Wasserman deftly weaves in themes of identity and memory that will resonate with many readers. Wasserman clearly did her research into Memory Science, and the history of treatment of female “hysterics”, all of which she presents in a fascinating and thought-provoking way. If we are who our memories make us, would we become fundamentally different people if we could curate our past? If we could pick and choose what we remember? Would we be happier if we could edit out our bad memories? What IS identity? What does it mean when we say things like “that was unlike you!” or “that was uncharacteristic” or “out of the blue”? How well do we really know ourselves, much less know anyone else in our life? Do people change (women in this novel change when they become mothers) or is whatever we present to the world a “performance”? All interesting questions, and perfect for literary book clubs to discuss. (Hat tip to Wasserman; we don’t learn Dr. Strauss’ wife’s name until 3/4th of the way through the book…and it’s “Madeline”. Good one!)

• compelling, but pretentious and over-written

  This book has a fascinating premise- a woman shows up in an area hospital with absolutely no recollection of who she is, and the novel is told in different voices from the perspective of three different women in two different time periods. The first time period, when Wendy is taken in by a local "Institute" and studied, both she and Lizzie - the young researcher treating her- take turns narrating. In the second, later time period, the book is told from the perspective of Alice (Wendy's daughter), and Elizabeth (actually Lizzie, but Lizzie decades after Wendy was at the institute). It sounds a little confusing, but once you begin reading, it falls into place quickly. The problem with the book- and it's kind of a big one- is that while it sets up to be an examination of what it means to be "free"- free from memory, free from any family obligations, free from responsibilities, free from social expectations- the book ultimately turns into an unending account of young Lizzie's obsession with the Institute's director (who happens to be a sexual predator). I get why it's part of the book, but it takes up so much space in the narrative it's insufferable after a while. If the author removed some of that, gave Wendy more of a voice than just short sentences and off-the-cuff observations, and hadn't overwritten the book to the point of it bordering on pretentious, it would have been *so* fascinating. I didn't hate it, and it was readable but the writing and the young girl's obsession with her manipulative older mentor are both so over-the-top that it really ruined the whole experience.

• Too hard to follow

  Hard to follow the story. Not enjoyable

購入リンク