Glitter and Glue: A Memoir Author: Kelly Corrigan | Language: English | ISBN:
B00EMX9QI8 | Format: EPUB
Glitter and Glue: A Memoir Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From the author of The Middle Place comes a new memoir that examines the bond—sometimes nourishing, sometimes exasperating, occasionally divine—between mothers and daughters. When Kelly Corrigan was in high school, her mother neatly summarized the family dynamic as “Your father’s the glitter but I’m the glue.” This meant nothing to Kelly, who left childhood sure that her mom—with her inviolable commandments and proud stoicism—would be nothing more than background chatter for the rest of Kelly’s life, which she was carefully orienting toward adventure. After college, armed with a backpack, her personal mission statement, and a wad of traveler’s checks, she took off for Australia to see things and do things and Become Interesting.
But it didn’t turn out the way she pictured it. In a matter of months, her savings shot, she had a choice: get a job or go home. That’s how Kelly met John Tanner, a newly widowed father of two looking for a live-in nanny. They chatted for an hour, discussed timing and pay, and a week later, Kelly moved in. And there, in that house in a suburb north of Sydney, 10,000 miles from the house where she was raised, her mother’s voice was suddenly everywhere, nudging and advising, cautioning and directing, escorting her through a terrain as foreign as any she had ever trekked. Every day she spent with the Tanner kids was a day spent reconsidering her relationship with her mother, turning it over in her hands like a shell, straining to hear whatever messages might be trapped in its spiral.
This is a book about the difference between travel and life experience, stepping out and stepping up, fathers and mothers. But mostly it’s about who you admire and why, and how that changes over time.
Praise for Glitter and Glue “I loved this book, I was moved by this book, and now I will share this book with my own mother—along with my renewed appreciation for certain debts of love that can never be repaid.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love “[A] funny, sparkling memoir.”
—More“Kelly Corrigan is no stranger to mining the depths of her heart. . . . [In]
Glitter and Glue, Corrigan turns the microscope on her relationship with her own mother. . . . Through her own experience of caring for children, she begins, for the first time, to appreciate the complex woman who raised her.”
—O: The Oprah Magazine “Corrigan writes with warmth and delicate humor.”
—The Washington Post“In this endearing, funny, and thought-provoking memoir, Kelly Corrigan’s memories of long-ago adventures illuminate the changing relationships between mothers and children—as well as everything else that really matters.”
—Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project “Corrigan remains a lively, nimble cheerleader for the joys of family.”
—People“Kelly Corrigan parses the bittersweet complexities of motherhood with humor and grace. Her writing has depth and buoyancy and light. It's a river on a summer day. You slip into the current, laughing, and are carried away by it.
Glitter and Glue is a perfect gift for anyone with a mother.”
—Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff and SpookFrom the Hardcover edition.- File Size: 1251 KB
- Print Length: 241 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 034553283X
- Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 4, 2014)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00EMX9QI8
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #733 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Motherhood - #1
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Motherhood - #2
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Parenting Girls
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Motherhood - #1
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Motherhood - #2
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Parenting Girls
Kelly Corrigan is a new author for me, but I will be seeking out her other works, as I was very impressed with "Glitter and Glue." This memoir was nothing like I was expecting from what I understood of the book when it picked it up -- I thought it was going to be a typical memoir of the author's childhood, with many stories of the differences between the author's mother and father. Corrigan's father is the "glitter" of the family and the title, but he hardly appears at all in the book -- he is the perpetual cheerleader for his daughter, always supportive and never critical. Corrgian's mother, on the other hand, described herself as the "glue" of the family, the practical, and generally critical, mother who rarely seemed to support any plan or scheme of her daughter.
But, the book is not much as I thought it would be -- rather the contrast of the mother and father are explored primarily in Corrigan's story of her 1992 summer in Australia when she was a young nanny to a family whose wife and mother had recently died of cancer. Corrigan had always assumed that when she married and had children she would be their glitter, and instead she found herself in a complex situation where there were no easy answers. The Australian family consisted of the father (older and an airline pilot), two young children (the names are not the same as the real life family), the father's stepson,and his father-in-law. In attempting to bond with the children, Corrigan finds that it was not simply a matter of indulging youngsters who missed their mother -- in fact there is very little discussion between Corrigan and the children about the mother related in the book, as most of that information comes from Evan, the stepson.
This memoir concentrates on a piece of Kelly Corrigan’s life in which she seems to come of age. From her own description, she seems to have been a contrarian child, not eager to please her mother, far closer to, and more accepting of, her father. After graduation from college, she lived with her grandmother, saved her money and set off to travel with a friend. Unfortunately, she didn’t plan her trip well enough and soon ran out of money. She needed to work, but the only job that she could get that would pay her under the table was that of a nanny, and this was not how she saw herself.
Working for a widower, his motherless children, stepson and father-in-law, was an eye-opening experience for Kelly. She suddenly realized what a responsibility it was to be a parent, but mainly how hard it was to be a mother and how empty someone’s life could be without one. As she got to know the children and extended family, and began to interact more and more with them, she came to understand the enormity of the task. It was daunting, and she wondered if she was up to it. Suddenly, she began to appreciate all her mother had done for her and to understand why she did certain things that she once disagreed with vehemently.
Growing up, Kelly was closer to her father, and she did not particularly like her mother’s parenting skills. Her mother was a no-nonsense figure who made the rules and set the standards to be followed. Her father was the softie, the Yin to her mother’s Yang. Her mother told Kelly that her father was the glitter and she was the glue, and from that, the title was born. As Kelly began to mature into a responsible adult, she became more and more like her mother and understood the value of having both the glue and the glitter in one’s life.
Glitter and Glue: A Memoir Preview
Link
Please Wait...