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Summary
Summary
From one of America's greatest comic novelists, a hilarious new novel about aging, family, loneliness, and love
The Bergman clan has always stuck together, growing as it incorporated in-laws, ex-in-laws, and same-sex spouses. But families don't just grow, they grow old, and the clan's matriarch, Joy, is not slipping into old age with the quiet grace her children, Molly and Daniel, would have wished. When Joy's beloved husband dies, Molly and Daniel have no shortage of solutions for their mother's loneliness and despair, but there is one challenge they did not count on: the reappearance of an ardent suitor from Joy's college days. And they didn't count on Joy herself, a mother suddenly as willful and rebellious as their own kids.
The New York Times -bestselling author Cathleen Schine has been called "full of invention, wit, and wisdom that can bear comparison to [ Jane] Austen's own" ( The New York Review of Books ), and she is at her best in this intensely human, profound, and honest novel about the intrusion of old age into the relationships of one loving but complicated family. They May Not Mean To, But They Do is a radiantly compassionate look at three generations, all coming of age together.
Author Notes
Author Cathleen Schine was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1953. She received a BA from Barnard College in 1976. She is both a novelist and a freelance writer. Two of her novels, The Love Letters and Rameau's Niece, were made into movies. She has also written for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and Family Circle. She currently lives in New York City.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Schine (The Three Weissmanns of Westport) examines what happens when your other half dies with adroit observations about family, loss, and aging. New Yorker Joy Bergman discovers what it is like to be alone and old after her husband loses his long fight with Alzheimer's disease. Without Aaron to care for, and with a new boss trying to retire her from her museum job, she suddenly feels each of her 86 years. Her children, Daniel and Molly, are filled with suggestions, but all involve taking away some measure of her independence. Things become further complicated when Joy brings a date to Passover. Meanwhile, Molly's son continues to drift and her domestic partner's dad keeps getting kicked out of nursing homes, and Daniel feels that he alone is worried about his mother's financial stability. Joy's doggedness when it comes to taking care of herself is recognizable and understandable, showcasing Schine's intuitive empathy, and any adult with an aged parent will recognize her children's well-meaning concern. Unfortunately, the ending peters out without a real conclusion. Agent: Molly Friedrich, The Friedrich Agency. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A close New York-based family copes with aging and death.The title of Schine's (Fin Lady, 2013, etc.) 10th novel refers to the famous lines by British poet Philip Larkin: "They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do." For Joy Bergman, who's caring for her beloved but hopelessly senile and physically failing husband and whose adult children think the answer is to get her a dog, you can replace "mum and dad" with "son and daughter." This kind of witticism is one of the main pleasures of this novel, which introduces us to three generations of feisty characters but doesn't give them enough action to hold our interest. The aging, the dying, the coping, and the kvetching all seem to proceed almost as slowly as they do in real life. Every time something interesting happens, such as when one of the littlest Bergmans accidentally breaks a shop window and injures a rabbi or a tiny dog is mauled by a big ferocious one, any negative consequences are resolved by the end of the chapter. A storyline about an elderly suitor who turns up professing his lifelong adoration of Joy is muted. In lieu of a plot arc, the novel focuses on the warmth the author feels for her characters and the warmth they feel for each other. "Daniel had never understood that you could love anyone as much as he loved Ruby and Cora. This love was new, born when they were born. Now life without that love coursing through him was unimaginable." "It's hard to be an old Jew," as one of the characters comments, and it's not so exciting to read about them, either. If this is the beginning of a tsunami of books about aging by baby-boomer authors, let's hope things pick up. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Aaron Bergman is dying. His wife, Joy, is not in the best shape to take care of them, but she refuses to give up their New York City apartment for a nursing home, nor can she afford the in-home care her children insist upon. Molly, their daughter, feels guilty living across the country in L.A., but her wife can't give up her professor job to move back east. Daniel, their son, does his best, but he has a family of his own. As each of the Bergmans fights change and the passage of time, there are moments of hilarity and poignancy in equal measure. Though all the Bergmans, including Daniel's oldest and about-to-be-bat-mitvahed daughter, Ruby, tell parts of the story, it is Joy's journey from working caregiver to patient to widow that stands out. Schine once again captures the love laced with guilt and sardonic humor that keeps generations of New York families together, whether they like it or not. Give to readers who liked Lauren Fox's Days of Awe (2015).--Maguire, Susan Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THEY CAN'T KILL US ALL: The Story of the Struggle for Black Lives, by Wesley Lowery. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $16.99.) As a journalist with The Washington Post covering race and law enforcement, Lowery reported on highprofile deaths including those of Michael Brown, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling and followed the Black Lives Matter movement. His book chronicles the movement as well as his evolution and outlook as a reporter. THEY MAY NOT MEAN TO, BUT THEY DO, by Cathleen Schine. (Picador, $16.) After her husband's death, Joy, 86, worries about becoming a burden and being sent offto a nursing home. Her children fret about helping her stave offloneliness and despair, until the return of Joy's old flame sends them into a frenzy. Schine handles death, aging and infirmity with candor and wry humor. TRUE BELIEVER: Stalin's Last American Spy, by Kati Marton. (Simon & Schuster, $17.) A privileged American who worked for the State Department, Noel Field joined the underground Communist movement in the 1930s, before being groomed by Soviet intelligence. Marton charts his transformation from an idealist to Stalinist hard-liner, tracing his ideology to what he saw as failures of capitalism. THE STORY OF A BRIEF MARRIAGE, by Anuk Arudpragasam. (Flatiron, $14.99.) Dinesh is one of hundreds displaced by Sri Lanka's civil war, helping bury the dead in a refugee camp during the final months of the conflict. An unexpected marriage thrusts him into new, unexpected intimacies, all while surrounded by the churn of violence and death. This debut novel is "a book that makes one kneel before the elegance of the human spirit and the yearning that is at the essence of every life," Ru Freeman wrote here. MAKERS AND TAKERS: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street, by Rana Foroohar. (Crown Business, $17.) The recovery after the 2008 crash has been the slowest and weakest of the postwar era, Foroohar, a Financial Times columnist, observes, and finance has stopped serving the real economy. She suggests ways to reverse course and ensure that middle-class Americans and small businesses aren't leftbehind. MOONGLOW, by Michael Chabon. (Harper Perennial, $16.99.) Drawing on his grandfather's deathbed confessions, Chabon has written a hybrid novel based on his grandparents' unlikely marriage (she a French Holocaust survivor, he an American Jew who served in World War II). The story is a lyrical portrait of postwar United States, with digressions on the supernatural and space travel.
Library Journal Review
The Bergman family of New York City has always been close-whether getting along or arguing, they are unfailingly loving. Daniel (in New York) and Mollie (in California) have a difficult time dealing with their parents, Joy and Aaron, slowing down as they age, and when Aaron dies after a long illness, they are all grieving. Joy, in her eighties, has always been independent and working full-time. As she learns to cope with her new life, her children try to tell her what to do, where to live, and so on. She rebels, tells them off, and then scandalizes them when she reconnects with an old college boyfriend. This is a great story, beautifully narrated by Cynthia Darlow. She portrays each of the characters so well that listeners will feel like part of the family. VERDICT For public library collections. ["Schine's ability to shift seamlessly from one person's point of view to another's adds depth and richness": LJ 4/1/16 review of the Sarah Crichton: Farrar hc.]-Michele Lauer-Bader, formerly with Half Hollow Hills Community Lib., Dix Hills, NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.