Maybe You Should Talk To Someone

 By Lori Gottlieb

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt     2019

415 pages     Memoir

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is an eminently readable look at the life of a psychologist. Lori Gottlieb is a journalist as well as a psychologist. Consequently, she has very skillfully integrated her own story with narratives about her relationship with her therapist as well as her relationships with several of her patients. The book is part memoir, part non-fiction psychology lesson, and part instruction on how to conduct therapy.

She begins with the story of the breakup with her boyfriend, who remains nameless. He has decided that he doesn’t want to parent another child, and Lori has a pre-adolescent son. They were on the verge of being married when he springs this decision on her. She asks what caused him to wait so long to broach the topic. He says “it never felt like the right time to bring it up.” She goes on to say, “When my therapist friends hear this part of the story, they immediately diagnose him as ‘avoidant.’ When my non-therapist friends hear it, they immediately diagnose him as ‘an asshole’.” Her shock and grief are so complete that she realizes that she needs to have some psychological therapy.

Gottlieb has an ingratiating writing style that leads us through her therapy with Wendall, thinking that he can help her through this crisis in her life. She soon learns that she is in therapy for more than just crisis management, but there is much more that she wants to learn through her sessions with Wendall. Some of the skills she witnesses while with Wendall can be carried over with her own patients. She finds herself growing both personally and professionally through her therapy. A quote from the journalist Alex Tizon becomes very appropriate as she grows. He believed that every person has an epic story that resides “somewhere in the tangle of the subject’s burden and the subject’s desire.”

To that end, Gottlieb tells the stories of several of her patients. She says that she has woven several cases together to tell the stories of a television executive, a woman turning 70 and fearing for the future, and a young woman facing death from cancer. Each of these stories is fascinating and revealing. I found myself reflecting on my own life situation as I read about their life situations, their therapy, and their futures. Each of these characters is eminently relatable and likeable. On the subject of likability, the reviewer in Slate has this to say.

“It is this exact question of likability that fascinatingly presents itself throughout the book, a meditation on the fact that we all consider ourselves to be the protagonists of our own stories, despite our flaws, a fact that must be abundantly apparent to our therapists. Early on, Gottlieb, struggling to remain patient with the television executive, reminds herself that “there’s something likeable in everyone,” a very therapist thing to say. But as we delve further into the process, she starts to unpack this idea of likability in greater depth, particularly in how it relates to herself—to her own self-perception as a patient and a person in the world. In doing so, Gottlieb simultaneously argues that likability matters much less than any of us think—“In therapy we aim for self-compassion (Am I human?) versus self-esteem (a judgement: Am I good or bad?)”—and acknowledges that we still all want to be liked just the same. Even Gottlieb asks her therapist, sheepishly, if he likes her. This smaller stuff may be clinically irrelevant, but it still matters.”

I was fascinated with Maybe You Should Talk to Someone on several levels. The book was extraordinarily interesting, and I found myself devouring chapter after chapter. My relationship with Gottlieb and her patients surprised me, and when the young patient dies, I cried, remembering my own grief experiences. In our book group discussion last evening, our friendships deepened as we each related our own stories, our own concerns, and our own therapy sessions. We ended the evening even more convinced that our friendships were deep and sincere, and the book group would remain the high point of our month—every month.

Lori Gottlieb’s website. On the website is a terrific Ted Talk about changing your life.

 

The Clover Girls

 By Viola Shipman

Graydon House     2021

416 pages           Fiction

 Viola Shipman has a great ability to capture the reader’s attention right off the bat. She did so in The Summer Cottage when the protagonist arrived at her childhood summer cottage in Saugatuck, Michigan. I related to the book immediately. The same thing happened when I began The Clover Girls, when the author used the words of an old camp song, “Land of the Silver Birch.” I was immediately hooked. How did the author know the song I used to teach when I was a camp counselor?

                                        Land of the silver birch,
                                           Home of the beaver
                                                 Where still the mighty moose
Wanders at will.
Blue lake and rocky shore
I will return once more
Boom diddy-ah da, boom boom

Boom diddy-ah da, boom boom

The plot centers on four girls, Elizabeth, Veronica, Rachel, and Emily who were best friends for all the years they either attended or were counselors at Camp Birchwood in Glen Arbor Michigan. Now, many years later when all are middle aged, they are invited back to the camp by Emily, who is dying. She asks them to repair the friendships that had been broken by perceived betrayal by spending a week together at the camp, and then she dies. The very wary women are not at all the idealistic girls they were when they were campers, but they return to the camp in honor and memory of Emily. Each have existing life challenges that they are facing, and they also have memories about how their friendships ended. Each had remained Emily’s friend, but the group friendship has been over for many years. The Clover Girls tells the tale of how their love and respect for each other is renewed. Additionally, the three remaining Clover Girls each use this retreat time to gain an understanding of their own personal struggles, and at the end of the week, their lives begin to be transformed. One reviewer told readers to “Grab a glass of sweet tea.”

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to understand why The Clover Girls didn’t particularly resonate with me, and I have come to the conclusion that I have just read too many introspective books lately, and I have thought too much about what I’ve been thinking. The need of the Clover Girls to use the week at camp to come to terms with their life issues just seemed like too much after I had journeyed through The Girl in the Red Boots, In Praise of Retreat, Dusk, Night, Dawn, and Faces. It wasn’t the fault of the book, the author, the Clover Girls, the setting, or the plot. It was me. (I think I need to read a good mystery.) Don’t let my musings deter you from reading this beautifully written meditation on friendship, middle age, life challenges, and forgiveness.

 The author Wade Rouse didn’t appear on my radar until I was offered a copy of The Summer Cottage in 2019, and I realized that it was a novel about Saugatuck, Michigan, one of my favorite places. (I absolutely loved The Summer Cottage.) Rouse writes his novels using his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman. He and his husband spend their summers in Saugatuck, and all of his novels have Lake Michigan settings. Rouse has a very unique ability to get into the life space of women, and all of the protagonists in his several best sellers are women.

My book club had the great good fortune to Zoom with Rouse when we met to discuss The Summer Cottage last month, and several of us are going to hear him in a live book reading of The Clover Girls in June. This book comes out tomorrow.

Wade Rouse’s Viola Shipman website. 

They Better Call Me Sugar

 By Sugar Rodgers

 Akashic     2021

190 pages     YA Memoir

The Shortlist

I must begin by saying that I had no idea who Sugar Rodgers is, nor could I have named the sport she plays when this book came from the publisher. But I quickly found out as I began the book that Sugar Rodgers is a WNBA basketball star, who has been a star athlete from a very early age.

TaShauna Rodgers was born in 1989 into a large family in Virginia, headed by a strong-willed, purposeful mother. The neighborhood was rough but the family was resilient and bonded. TaShauna has always gone by the name, Sugar, hence the title of the book. At a very early age, Sugar showed great promise as an athlete, whether it was golf, football, or basketball—at which she excelled. She was the first of her family to attend college, where she was a basketball star, and now she plays basketball for the Las Vegas Aces.

The memoir is filled with anecdotes and memories from her childhood on, written in short, easy to read chapters. Although the writing a bit disjointed, the reader is left with insight and inspiration, particularly regarding the influence of her mother as well as the mentors who understood her potential and her strength of will. She says in closing, “My personal education has been one of knowledge gained from a never-ending list of people and life experiences. I cannot dismiss any of the impact that those interactions have had on me. They have all participated equally in creating my success. The positive people in my life and the negative ones—any way you look at it, they were all good for me. My haters are my motivators and my supporters are my lifeline.”

The most poignant story in the book is about the time as a young girl when her sister was in jail, and she went to visit her. The reader could feel the emotion radiating from the pages as she described putting her hand on the glass in an attempt to reach her sister, while speaking to her on the phone. Yet they were all smiling. A pivotal moment in her life.

I would recommend They Better Call Me Sugar to young teenage girls who are seeking a role model or girls who are interested in sports careers. It will resonate and inspire them.

Here is the Kirkus review.

The Girl in the Red Boots: Making Peace with My Mother

 By Judith Ruskay Rabinor PhD

She Writes Press     2021

271 pages     Memoir

Can a mother be both loving and selfish? Caring and thoughtless? Deceitful and devoted? These are the questions that fuel psychologist Dr. Judy Rabinor’s quest to understand her ambivalence toward her mother. Her book, The Girl in the Red Boots, was published yesterday. I have been pondering how and why it landed so heavily on my heart and mind.

Each child in a family has a different relationship with his/her mother. Rabinor asserts that the type of relationship you establish with your mother in early childhood lasts throughout your life—particularly if it is a mother-daughter relationship. Rabinor is an expert in eating disorders and many of the stories in the book deal with young women who were her patients as they explored their relationships with food. She discovered that many of those relationships to food were governed by the young women’s  relationships with their mothers. While dealing with them, she was able to explore her complicated relationship with her own mother and relates how she finally came to a resolution after many years of struggle.

She says in the prologue: “Stories are great teachers; they have to power to heal. The tales from my office and my life may help you untangle your stuck places and develop compassion for yourself and, possibly, for your mother.” She begins each section with a story suggestion to guide readers in their thinking as they read that chapter. She guides the readers to look inward as they grow in the understanding of their own relationships and their own family histories. Her narrative is a powerful memoir as well as a self-help guide.

Rabinor remarks that one of her mother’s best quotes was “You’ll be fine! Everything will work out—you’ll see.” Oops! I remember several times I said the same thing to my daughter. She goes on to say that what she yearned for was her mother’s genuine empathic presence. My own mother was very busy and most likely I had moments when I wished for more of my mother’s presence. On the other hand, my mother had a career at a time when most mothers were stay-at-home, and I was very proud of that. If I were to have this discussion with my sisters, I know that each of their stories would be different. Judith Rabinor is just my age, so perhaps the book resonated so well with me because some of our life experiences were similar, although I don’t have as many negative feelings about my mother as Rabinor had about her mother.

In one passage that reverberated with me,  she asked women at a convention to introduce themselves by saying a very revealing sentence or two. Here is an example. “I’m Julie, daughter of Ruth. I was welcomed to the world of womanhood by Ruth, queen of secrets.” After much thought, I created my introduction: “I am Miriam, daughter of Evelyn. I was welcomed to the world of womanhood by Evelyn, whose goal in life was to please her husband.” Much discussion could follow.

I found The Girl in the Red Boots to be a very challenging and revealing book, and I would recommend it to people as they seek to define or redefine their lives. The Kirkus reviewer called it “a contemplative, cleareyed study of family dynamics.”

Judith Rabinor’s website.