Book Review -- I Miss You When I Blink

I was a bit confused when my reserved library book arrived. It's categorized as "biography," but the subtitle is "Essays" and several of the reviews on the back cover describe it as "memoir." In an interview that author Mary Laura Philpott did with fellow writer Ann Patchett, she talked about a similar discussion she had with her publisher -- essays or memoir? She chose essays but in at least one other country, they removed the "Essays" subtitle and called it a memoir instead. Philpott really didn't care either way.

Delightfully, it is both. Philpott's collection of essays -- sometimes poignant, sometimes painful, always with wry, self-deprecating humor --is a wonderful way to write a memoir / autobiography. The essays are arranged in a loose chronology without any sense of marking events ("then this happened, followed by this"). Instead, they capture moments and their importance from the perspective of her future self, or sometimes their ultimate lack of importance in the greater scheme of things. 

As Philpott points out time and again, perspective is everything. For example, here's a wonderful passage about child-rearing looking back from the viewpoint of the mother of teen-agers:

If you believe there's one right answer to every child-rearing question -- and I may not so much anymore, but I sure did for a least the first decade of parenting -- then you're prone to extrapolating every choice you make. What if Junior doesn't get into the 'best' baby music class, the one where they put all the maracas and ukuleles and xylophones out on the floor and let the tots gravitate to the instrument that calls them? Then what? He'll never learn to play music, which means he won't develop language and spatial skills, which mean he'll surely fail both English and math and never get into college. His hand-eye coordination will stall out, and he'll be unable to hold a fork. All the other kids will be conducting orchestras and building robots with their amazing fine and gross motor skills, but Junior? No, Junior will eat with his hands, miss his own mouth, and stumble through the world in Velcro shoes with peanut butter on his face. All because he didn't get on the waiting list for the music class fast enough.

I laughed and cried at the same time. That spiral was both ridiculous and realistic. It tugged at my heartstrings and tickled my funny bone. Which is Philpott's genius through the book. When Philpott examines her life, I feel like she is examining my life, except that she's able to see with so much more clarity and humor. 

Philpott addresses the ongoing debate about whether women can indeed have it all in her own unique way. And she nails it:

Deciding what you won't have in your life is as important as deciding what you will have. Trying out something you expect to love, realizing you don't really love it, and giving it back, that takes guts... It takes letting go of the idea that living right means racking up every honor you can get. It means understanding that success isn't about nailing every role; it's about choosing the roles you'll play and how well you want to play them. It's about refusing to see yourself as the passive recipient of a life someone else wants for you.

I'm sad that this is a library book. I may just buy it and revisit it from time to time.