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At age 39, Ariel Gore has everything she's always wanted: a successful writing career, a long-term partnership, a beautiful if tiny home, a daughter in college and a son in preschool. But life's happy endings don't always last. If it's not one thing, after all, it's your mother. Her name is Eve. Her epic temper tantrums have already gotten her banned from three cab companies in Portland. And she's here to announce that she's dying. "Pitifully, Ariel," she sighs. "You're all I have."
Ariel doesn't want to take care of her crazy dying mother, but she knows she will. It's the right thing to do, isn't it? And, anyway, how long could it go on? "Don't worry," Eve says. "If I'm ever a burden, I'll just blow my brains out." Amidst the chaos of clowns and hospice workers, pie and too much whiskey, Ariel's own ten-year relationship begins to unravel. Darkly humorous and intimately human, The End of Eve redefines the meaning of family and everything we've ever been taught to call love.
"Starred Review. By turns tender and heartbreaking, Gore's book is a brave, thoroughly authentic journey to the center of the human heart. Wickedly sharp reading filled to bursting with compassion, rage, pain and wit." - Kirkus
"Gore's mantra of 'Behave in a way you're going to be proud of' guided her well during her mother's seemingly unending final illness but also in the writing of this book." - Library Journal
"Ariel Gore's memoir is in its essence a how to book. In the face of death, our grief, how to breathe, how to be brave, how to be funny, how to be authentic. How to make it through. But most of all: tenderness - how Ariel puts human tenderness on the page is an act of poetry damn close to sublime." - Tom Spanbauer. In the City of Shy Hunters
"Ariel Gore has blown my mind twice before with her previous books on
motherhood and happiness - now she's stunned me a third time with The End of Eve. This is the story of the world's most startlingly insane, beautiful mother who was supposed to die in one year - but nearly killed her entire family and staff before she was through." - Susie Bright, Full Exposure
"Dorothy Parker famously said 'there are no happy endings,' but Ariel Gore's sweet, tough, elegant account of her mother's last days is absurdly happy - if happy means inhabiting life in all its mess, distress, beauty and occasional hilarity. A near-perfect gem." - Karen Karbo, Julia Child Rules: Lessons on Savoring Life
This information about The End of Eve was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ariel Gore is the publisher of Hip Mama Magazine. Her books include Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness; How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead; The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show; Atlas of the Human Heart; and The Hip Mama's Survival Guide. She lives in Oakland, CA.
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