Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott

[snugglekitty]

This was a suggestion from harlequinade. Given my job, I read a lot of books on pregnancy, birth, and parenting - at this point it takes a fair amount to surprise me or really impress me in the genre. This book had what it took. Lamott holds nothing back as she describes the incredible journey of deciding to have a baby on her own, giving birth, and the first year of his life. She also flashes back to her experiences as an addict, getting sober, and the long illness of her father. Her faith is a current that runs through the whole book, and clearly sustains her deeply, but she's never evangelical about it. I love that. I love how true this book is, and how hysterically funny it is. I definitely need a copy for my pregnancy and birth library. Maybe even more than one copy. Five stars.



"No one in the world hates George Bush as much as I do. (Who was it that said he looks like everybody's first husband?)" p 51 (And actually, the first guy I was handfasted to DID kind of look like George Bush. But that was a long time ago, thank goddess.)

"I know it's odd to a lot of people that I'm religious -- I mean, it's odd to me that I'm religious, I never meant to be. I don't quite know how it happened: I think at some point, a long time ago, I made a decision to believe, and then every step of the way, even through the worst of it, the two years my dad was sick with brain cancer, the last few years of my drinking, I could feel the presence of something I could turn to, something that would keep me company, give me courage, be there...Jesus is there with us everyplace Sam and I go." p 31 (This, I can relate to.)

"I wonder if it is normal for a mother to adore her baby so desperately and at the same time to think about choking him or throwing him down the stairs." p 59 (Yes, it is so totally normal!)

"So what I want to ask is, What if a fairy appeared on your doorstep and said that he or she would do any favor for you at all, anything you wanted around the house that you felt too exhausted to do by yourself and too ashamed to ask anyone else to help you with?" p 70 (I am totally going to start asking my clients this, postpartum.)



I'm following this up with the new anthology Maybe Baby, which I suspect will make a great companion piece.

Comments

[clonetwin.livejournal.com]

Traveling Mercies is the only book of hers I've read (though I read her column on Salon), and it's amazing, too. I need to read that again.

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

I like the quote, which I think is in that book about a baby being like having Janis Joplin for a roommate only worse.

[srl.livejournal.com]

Lamott's Bird By Bird was assigned reading in the nonfiction-essaywriting class I took at Smith, and I really enjoyed it. Everything I've ever read of hers is clearly faith-influenced, but she's Episcopalian, and they're generally not big into the evangelism.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It was loaned to me by an ex, and I never read it, so I'm a bit resistant to reading it, but I will certainly weigh your recommendation in with that. :)

Episcopalian, okay. She never says, and I like that. :)

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

That one is next on my list. Thanks for the recommendation. :)

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Ha! That's funny. Maybe it was - I couldn't write down everything that made me laugh, because I would have been rewriting the whole book, and I know she did a better job with it than I could have.

[heresiarch.livejournal.com]

ugh, i really dislike her column on Salon... but maybe the book is better? she just rubs me the wrong way.