For You Mother, Finally

For You Mother, Finally by Ruth Reichl

published in 2010 by Penguin

I’ll openly admit to being such a fan of former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl, that if she wrote those arduous Privacy Statements you receive through the mail, I would read every single word. Her style is friendly and readable, and her descriptions are right on. But that’s not the reason why I love For You Mother, Finally. After reading Tender to the Bone, where Ruth describes in detail her unusual and less than fabulous childhood, and then Comfort Me With Apples which continues with her foray into the world of food, I had a certain vision of Ruth’s non-sympathetic and offbeat and kind of misfit mother. That’s because it’s the picture Ruth paints for you. All that changes with For You Mother, Finally.

Through Finally, the reader, along with Ruth, discovers amazing things about her mother. Through old letters and diaries Ruth had left unopened in her basement for years, we discover what her made her mother happy, her childhood aspirations, how she attempted to conform to society’s expectations of a wife and a mother, and how it was akin to fitting a round peg in a square hole. This short but powerful book is an eye-opener for those of us fortunate enough to be working mothers, and makes us realize that there was a time when the only expectation of you is that you keep house and tend to your children and your man.

I highly recommend this book that will only take an hour or so to read. To get the most impact from the story, I recommend treating yourself to Ruth Reichl’s Tender to the Bone first.

One last thought: This book would be great for a book group with mixed ages of women to get everyone’s views.

[review by ES]