Synopses & Reviews
From
O magazine to the
New York Times, from authors such as E. L. Doctorow to Ann Beattie, critics and writers across the country have hailed Roger Rosenblatt's
Making Toast as an evocative, moving testament to the enduring power of a parent's love and the bonds of family.
When Roger's daughter, Amy — a gifted doctor, mother, and wife — collapses and dies from an asymptomatic heart condition at age thirty-eight, Roger and his wife, Ginny, leave their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren: six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one-year-old James, known as Bubbies.
Long past the years of diapers, homework, and recitals, Roger and Ginny — Boppo and Mimi to the kids — quickly reaccustom themselves to the world of small children: bedtime stories, talking toys, play-dates, nonstop questions, and nonsequential thought. Though reeling from Amy's death, they carry on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tenderhearted children through the pains and confusions of grief. As he marvels at the strength of his son-in-law and the tenacity and skill of his wife, Roger attends each day to "the one household duty I have mastered" — preparing the morning toast perfectly to each child's liking.
Luminous, precise, and utterly unsentimental, Making Toast is both a tribute to the singular Amy and a brave exploration of the human capacity to move through and live with grief.
Review
“[An] exquisite, restrained little memoir filled with both hurt and humor.” NPR's All Things Considered
Review
“A must read for all....By no means treacly with sentiment, the book takes us through the ordinary along with the extra-ordinary events in the life of this family as they struggle to regain their center and go on with their lives.” Bookbrowse.com
Review
“[Making Toast] 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 its a textbook on what constitutes perfect writing and how to be a class act.” Carolyn See, The Washington Post
Review
"Roger Rosenblatt means, I believe, to teach patience, love, a fondness for the quotidian, and a deftness for saving the lost moment when faced with lacerating loss. These are brilliant lessons, fiercely-learned. But Rosenblatt comes to them and to us suitably with immense humility." Richard Ford
Review
“Rosenblatt avoids the sentimentality that might have weighed down [Making Toast]; he writes with humor and an engagement with life that makes the occasional flashes of grief all the more telling. The result is a beautiful account of human loss, measured by the steady effort to fill in the void.” Publishers Weekly
Review
“Sad but somehow triumphant, this memoir is a celebration of family, and of how, even in the deepest sorrow, we can discover new links of love and the will to go on.” O, The Oprah Magazine
Review
“Rosenblatt…sets a perfect tone and finds the right words to describe how his family is coming with their grief….It may seem odd to call a book about such a tragic event charming, but it is. There is indeed life-after death, and Rosenblatt proves that without a doubt.” USA Today
Review
“Hauntingly lovely.” Christian Science Monitor
Review
“[A] gem of a memoir... sad, funny, brave and luminous....[a] rare and generous book.” Los Angeles Times
Review
“There are circumstances in which prose is poetry, and the unornamented candor of Rosenblatt's writing slowly attains to a sober sort of lyricism....This is more than just a moving book. It is also a useful book....[Rosenblatt's] toast is buttered with wisdom. ” Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic
Review
“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.” E.L. Doctorow
Review
“[A] piercing account of broken hearts [that] records how love, hurt, and responsibility can, through antic wit and tenderness, turn a shattered household into a luminous new-made family.” Cynthia Ozick
Review
“Written so forthrightly, but so delicately, that you feel youre a part of this family....How lucky some of us are to see clearly what needs to be done, even in the saddest, most life-altering circumstances.” Ann Beattie
Synopsis
A painfully beautiful memoir .Written with such restraint as to be both heartbreaking and instructive. E. L. DoctorowA revered, many times honored (George Polk, Peabody, and Emmy Award winner, to name but a few) journalist, novelist, and playwright, Roger Rosenblatt shares the unforgettable story of the tragedy that changed his life and his family. A book that grew out of his popular December 2008 essay in The New Yorker, Making Toast is a moving account of unexpected loss and recovery in the powerful tradition of About Alice and The Year of Magical Thinking. Writer Ann Beattie offers high praise to the acclaimed author of Lapham Rising and Beet for a memoir that is, written so forthrightly, but so delicately, that you feel you re a part of this family. "
Synopsis
"A painfully beautiful memoir....Written with such restraint as to be both heartbreaking and instructive."
--E. L. Doctorow
A revered, many times honored (George Polk, Peabody, and Emmy Award winner, to name but a few) journalist, novelist, and playwright, Roger Rosenblatt shares the unforgettable story of the tragedy that changed his life and his family. A book that grew out of his popular December 2008 essay in The New Yorker, Making Toast is a moving account of unexpected loss and recovery in the powerful tradition of About Alice and The Year of Magical Thinking. Writer Ann Beattie offers high praise to the acclaimed author of Lapham Rising and Beet for a memoir that is, "written so forthrightly, but so delicately, that you feel you're a part of this family."
Synopsis
A revered, many times honored (George Polk, Peabody, and Emmy Award winner, to name but a few) journalist, novelist, and playwright, Roger Rosenblatt shares the unforgettable story of the tragedy that changed his life and his family. A book that grew out of his popular December 2008 essay in The New Yorker, Making Toast is a moving account of unexpected loss and recovery in the powerful tradition of About Alice and The Year of Magical Thinking. Writer Ann Beattie offers high praise to the acclaimed author of Lapham Rising and Beet for a memoir that is, “written so forthrightly, but so delicately, that you feel you're a part of this family.”
About the Author
Roger Rosenblatt's essays for Time and The NewsHour on PBS have won two George Polk Awards, the Peabody, and an Emmy. He is the author of six off-Broadway plays and sixteen books, including the national bestsellers Kayak Morning, Making Toast, Unless It Moves the Human Heart, Rules for Aging, the novel Lapham Rising, and Children of War, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has held the Briggs-Copeland appointment in the teaching of writing at Harvard, and is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Writing at Stony Brook University.