Operating Instructions
A Journal of My Son's First Year
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4.2 • 79 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The acclaimed author of Bird by Bird brings her brilliant combination of humor and warmth to a "smart, funny, and comforting" chronicle of single motherhood (Los Angeles Times Book Review).
It’s not like she’s the only woman to ever have a baby. At thirty-five. On her own. But Anne Lamott makes it all fresh in her now-classic account of how she and her son and numerous friends and neighbors and some strangers survived and thrived in that all important first year. From finding out that her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out that her best friend and greatest supporter Pam will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), with a generous amount of wit and faith (but very little piousness), Lamott narrates the great and small events that make up a woman’s life.
"Lamott is a wonderfully lithe writer .... Anyone who has ever had a hard time facing a perfectly ordinary day will identify." —Chicago Tribune
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Magazine columnist and novelist Lamott ( All New People ) captures both the poignancy and comedy of her first year as a single mother in this wonderfully candid diary. Her quirky humor steadily draws the reader into her unconventional world as she describes her friends and neighbors in northern California, her participation in a local church, her experiences as a recovering alcoholic and--best of all--her infant son, Sam, born in 1989. She covers maternal emotions from rapturous bliss to bare fury (``In the middle of the colic death marches, I end up looking at the baby with those hooded eyes that were in the old ads for The Boston Strangler ''). Throughout, she airs her strong political and religious beliefs. And when her best friend, Pammy, is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Lamott conveys her anguish with the same depth of feeling and sense of the absurd that characterize her observations about her son, God, recovery, writing, Republicans, men and life as usual. Even non-parents will enjoy this glowing work.
Customer Reviews
Not what I thought it would be
First off this is more if a journal or thought diary than an insight into what a child's first year would be. The writer is highly religious, a single mother, depressed and a recovering addict. Other than us both being liberal I literally have nothing in common with her and cannot relate to her. I found her lost and confused and it's not what I really want to read when I'm about to embark on this scary new chapter of my life. I was hoping for some insight to what happens when this baby pops out of me, but ended up disappointed.