Praise of Motherhood

Well, I haven't finished it yet. I'll return when I do.

1. I LIKED IT ACAUSE PHIL IS WRITER

2. Not at all. When I read things I let the text speak for itself. And when Phil's mom died I didn't say anything to him about it. I didn't know her so I didn't lose anything, and I didn't think anything I could say on the subject would have really made a difference.

3. Onion chapter. Though some of my favorite parts, including the dialogue with the mom's boyfriend, the angelic presence at the funeral, the emptying of the fridge, were in different chapters. The conversation supposed by the narrator of his mother talking with the priest, though, is definitely the best part.

4. In the original, it was written as though the memoir had already been published and the narrator has already been criticized for the same thing! Lacan is a madman who thinks he is Lacan, as if Phil knew even then that the book would be received like that. Which was inevitable.

But it's like saying that Alien is about aliens, or that Halloween (1979) is about Michael Myers, the killer. There is Ripley in Aliens and Laurie Strode in Halloween, and the main context of either story is in the relationship between slasher and victim; not, like Friday the 13th, a story all about the slasher with nameless victims. The interplay between slasher and victim is what makes a good slasher, because it's about killing, the act of killing, not the killer and the not the killed but what goes on between the two, like a dance of smashed doors and noises that turns out to just be the cat.

It was inevitable because the book is about a boy's relationship with his mother, his perception of his mother, and his mother's relationship with and perception of him--the relationship, not either person exactly. Praise of Motherhood, not praise of whatever his mom's name is.

It's also now available as an ebook for both the kindle and the nook for only 99 cents.

I set up a camera at a reading event we did together in Kansas City last month. Here's the first chapter or so for your enjoyment and interest-piquing:

I'm watching that the second I finish the book. I can't imagine how hard it would be for him to do a reading from it.

You can watch it, Pete, it's the first chapter.

I guess I should read this at some point.

Someone send me a copy.

Wow, it's different hearing him read it. Different...

I like the surprise ending to the video where Phil turns out to be a ghost the whole time.

Yeah, I liked that too. It looks very in tune with the subject of the book.

I think the camera got bumped or something at the end, leaving me without a good place to fade to black, so I grabbed a clean frame from somewhere else. Maybe. I can't remember; did a lot of drinking that week. Phil, the ghost writer.

Yeah, it sounded like Tietz was already drunk while announcing Phil.

Just finished it.

I would love to write a review of this, but I'm not sure I know how... I'm pretty much lost for words. It's much different than I was expecting. Full of emotion, but in different ways than I thought it would be.

I think the book is more about Phil's mother being his mother and how she handled him and how he felt about her. But I don't think it's misleading at all. The book is called Praise of Motherhood. I think the title is pretty straightforward. It wasn't called Sophia Jourdan. It is obviously going to be about a mother and child relationship with that title. And that's exactly what Phil gives us.

This is how I feel!I haven't written up a review because I don't know what to say.

The book almost feels personal regardless if you're close friends with Phil or not. The emotional responses that each chapter evokes as Phil unravels his thoughts, trying to understand who his mother was to other people and reveals his relationship with her in the process is just...awe-mazing. It's shocking, raw, real, touching, and a true work of art.

My favorite chapter was when he talks about learning to cook with his mother, the scene was somehow so cold and distant yet somehow felt like it was some of the warmest memories Phil shared with his mother. While I was reading this part in the book I took a picture that came out blue and as I looked at the picture it reminded me of how the chapter was making me feel. Oh soo blue.

It's such a lovely book. Seriously thanks for writing this book Phil. As much as I know it was more for yourself to understand what it is you were experiencing since your mother's unexpected passing, I believe this book is going to touch many people's lives.

I think the best test is to see how much the book touched me. I am by no means close to my mother, I can't stand her most of the times, but throughout the book all I could think was "how great it must be to love someone this much". I like the chapter that you mention, Jaz, it shows how close they got when he came home on holidays. I also like the chapter where he goes to one of her lectures and notices the dead fly. That shows how much patience she had.