Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Mothers and Daughters

First I read "Mama Makes Up Her Mind" by Bailey White. Unfortunately, I stupidly took it back to the library before I jotted down the publisher, number of pages (not many, it's a slim book) and price. Go to amazon.com; I did.

White seems to have made a cottage industry out of living in the South; she has at least four other books out. She writes about the vagaries of living in the South and with this one, pretty much living with her mother.

Her account of Mama's doings -- a Volkswagon stored on the front porch; Mama always sleeps on the back porch -- reminded me strongly of Big Edie and Little Edie Beale of "Grey Gardens" but she's just not quite as insane as they were. yet.

Next up was "Tip It" by Maggie Griffin. Apparently there is a television program called 'Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List" and her 90-something year old mother has frequently appeared on it.

Kathy wrote her own biography; so here is Mom's which is, by and large, a lecture; don't dress your little kids like tramps and 'hos; why Bill O'Reilly and Judge Judy are her heroes and the book is punctuated with "witty" asides from Kathy. Based on her interjections, I would think she's kind of an angry objector with 'way too much mouth. I'm sure she would call it "biting sarcasm." To which I would say, "Not."

There are also 'way too many references to gay people and their lifestyles. I wanted to say, "Uh, it's 2010 now? They're queer and they're here? What part of that don't you understand?"

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