"I'll Be Seeing You," by Elizabeth Berg

Elizabeth Berg always writes beautifully about women’s lives, families, love, relationships, and so much more in her novels. I have just read her memoir about her parents’s old age, illness, and death, and it is as beautifully written as her novels, and all the more poignant for being Berg’s own painful family story. The memoir is titled “I’ll Be Seeing You” (Random House, 2020). It is a short book (under 200 smallish pages) but packed with a combination of realism and emotion. Berg says she wondered if it was acceptable to tell her parents’ intimate story in this way, but concluded that what happened in their lives, and the lives of their children, was something that happens to so many people, and is perhaps not written about in this candid way often enough. Berg herself is 70, as she notes, and her parents were in their late 80s and early 90s when the events of their story happened. So Berg is not only thinking of her parents’ decline, but is also reminded that her own struggles with aging will come in the not too distant future as well. Her father is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and her mother – who was always dearly loved and taken care of by her strong and doting husband – is having a very difficult time adjusting. This comes out as a kind of simmering anger at her husband and at the situation, an attitude which bewilders him. Berg and her sister persuade her parents that they have to leave the house where they have lived for decades, and move into an independent living facility. The move is especially hard on Berg’s mother. Berg finds herself upset with her mother for not trying harder to adapt to the new situation. She and her sister have long gripe sessions about their mother. Yet of course they dearly love both parents; it is just that no one is happy with the developments, and no one quite knows what to do or how to feel. The memoir ends with both parents dying, first Berg’s father and then her mother. The parents and the daughters have by that time more or less adjusted to their evolving situation. But there is no glossing over the pain and difficulty of the situation for the whole family. Berg is very good at capturing the complexities and contradictions of everyone’s experiences and feelings. My family, like so many families, has had some experience with aging parents and of dilemmas related to aging, illness, and decline, and although the specifics of our stories are different, there are definitely common strands that resonate for me, and, I am sure, that resonate for many readers. There is no denying the often wrenching nature of the changes -- whether to a greater or lesser extent -- that old age brings, both for the aging people themselves and for their families. Berg's memoir provides no magical answers, but offers the validation and comfort of sharing common human experiences.

Two story collections: "Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self," by Danielle Evans, and "World Gone Missing," by Laurie Ann Doyle

Today I am writing briefly about two books of short stories that I have read recently. On 1/12/21, I wrote about how struck I was by the power and vividness of Danielle Evans’ 2020 short story collection, intriguingly titled “The Office of Historical Corrections.” I was so impressed by that collection that I obtained her earlier book of stories, “Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self” (Riverhead, 2010), and was equally impressed by it. By the way, those are both great titles, aren’t they? The 2010 book was blurbed as “stunningly confident,” “fearless,” and “bold,” and I completely agree with those assessments; those qualities stand out. The stories are mostly about young African-American women who experience various dilemmas. Even though the dilemmas often include common ones related to sex, pregnancy, and money, they are in no way predictable. The second short story collection I read recently is “World Gone Missing” (Regal, 2017), by Laurie Ann Doyle. The author lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and her stories are set there (here, for me! And you know I always like San Francisco settings for fiction!). As the title implies, in each story someone is looking for someone else who is missing – a father, a brother, a friend, a lost love, a birth mother. The stories are sad, yet the feelings of the characters are more complex than just sadness; their feelings include frustration, loss, and even an unexpected sense of freedom. Both of these story collections are truly engrossing and thought-provoking, and I recommend both of them, even for those readers who don’t usually gravitate to short stories.

RIP Nawal El Saadawi

I write in tribute to the late, great Nawal El Saadawi, physician, writer, feminist, activist, advocate for women, who died on March 22, 2021, at the age of 89. Her work was pathbreaking in her own country, Egypt, as well as throughout the Middle East and the world. She was a brave woman, always speaking out her truth, even when it was dangerous for her. Among other indignities and frightening experiences that she suffered were being jailed by Anwar Sadat in 1981 for protests against the Egyptian government, as well as receiving death threats. She dared to write about women’s sexuality, including in her first book, “Women and Sex.” She fought social and religious restrictions put on women, including fighting against genital mutilation. Meanwhile she wrote over fifty works of fiction and nonfiction; her work was translated into over forty languages. She received many honors, including being on the cover of Time magazine. But she was never given honors in her own country, Egypt. I first read some of El Saadawi’s work in my college days, and as a woman and feminist, I was struck by, and so admired, her work. What a difference she made in the lives of so many women! Thank you, Nawal El Saadawi!