Making Toast: Summary and book reviews of Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt, plus links to an excerpt from Making Toast and a biography of Roger Rosenblatt.
Making Toast A Family Story
by Roger Rosenblatt
Hardcover: Mar 2010,
176 pages.
Paperback: Feb 2011,
128 pages.
When his daughter Amy, a gifted doctor, mother, and wife collapsed and died from an asymptomatic heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, left their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren. With the wit, heart, precision, and depth of understanding that has characterized his work, Roger Rosenblatt peels back the layers on this most personal of losses to create both a tribute to his late daughter and a testament to familial love. The day Amy died, Harris told Ginny and Roger, "It's impossible." Rosenblatt's story tells how a family makes the possible out of the impossible.
With the wit, heart, precision, and depth of understanding that has characterized his work, Roger Rosenblatt peels back the layers on this most personal of losses to create both a tribute to his late daughter and a testament to familial love.
BOOK REVIEWS
BookBrowse 22 out of 27 BookBrowse readers gave Making Toast 4 or 5 stars. Here's what they had to say:
A wonderfully written account of how one family handles a very painful event. I can think of no more heartwarming relationship than a grandparent and grandchild. Although this relationship is forged through painful conditions, the story is told in such an honest and factual, but warm and loving way that this is a book you will learn from and remember (C H). This is without a doubt the best book I have ever read on how to "get on with getting on". Making Toast will make you cry, but in doing so it might make you a better person. Read this book (Lois G)! (Reviewed by BookBrowse First Impression Reviewers). Full Review (780 words).
Media Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. [A] beautiful account of human loss, measured by the steady effort to fill in the void.
Kirkus Reviews
There is plenty of hugging and tears, but thankfully no mawkishness or emotional manipulation. Through the glass of the author's transparent style we see all the sharp and soft contours of grief
The Christian Science Monitor
The careful, deliberate writing... lays out every instance where Amy’s absence was noticed. Rosenblatt handles these moments delicately, often cloaking them in wit or anecdotes...
If there’s one shortcoming to Making Toast, it’s that Rosenblatt’s writing itself feels dispassionate. The anger that Rosenblatt mentions so frequently comes across as muffled and technical. Yet [he] commands your attention by other means... each isolated story makes your heart ache... a bleakly beautiful scatter plot of grief.
The Washington Post - Carolyn See
The story is about coping with grief, caring for children and creating an ad hoc family for as long as this particular configuration is required, but mostly it's a textbook on what constitutes perfect writing and how to be a class act.
E.L. Doctorow
A painfully beautiful memoir telling how grandparents are made over into parents, how people die out of order, how time goes backwards. Written with such restraint as to be both heartbreaking and instructive.
Ann Beattie
Written so forthrightly, but so delicately, that you feel you're a part of this family.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Amanda Only read if you are depressed If you are looking for a book that’ll make you feel depressed about life, then Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt, is indeed to book for you.
This book is about a family who suffers a tragedy, when a beloved wife, mother, and daughter... Read More
Rated of 5
by Alma Toching The book cover says this is a family story; I’d say it’s also a love story. The author talks about his grief, anger and resentment, but I can tell he is talking about joy, family bonds and love to life, too. I enjoyed this book. I cried, I... Read More
War, natural disaster, reckless gods and the recognition of impermanence in the world are just some of the threads that AS Byatt weaves into this most timely of books. Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, this is a landmark.
A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, exploring how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths.
Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants, Margaret Powell's classic memoir of her time in service is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though she served in the great houses of England, never stopped aiming high.
Vivid, daring, and unforgettable, The Printmaker's Daughter shines fresh light on art, loyalty, and the tender and indelible bond between a father and daughter.
I read The Healing in two sittings it is a fascinating story of plantation life at the beginning of the Civil War. Granada, a slave newborn child...
read more
The Uncommon Reader is a novella by novelist and playwright, Alan Bennett. The story starts with the Queen coming across the mobile library van...
read more
Arizona bills Amazon for $53 million in uncollected sales tax(Feb 06 2012) The ongoing sales tax battle between many US states and large online retailers, most notably Amazon, continues with a thrust from Arizona which, last week,...
Full Story
Amazon rumored to be opening bricks and mortar stores(Feb 03 2012) There are mumblings in the blogosphere that Amazon is to open bricks and mortar stores. Launch.it offers four possible scenarios:
(780 words).
The Christian Science Monitor
E.L. Doctorow
of 5
by Amanda
of 5
by Alma
RSS feed
