Her Last Death: A Memoir
by Susanna Sonnenberg
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Book Reviews of Her Last Death: A Memoir
Book Review: pretentious, voyeuristic and self-serving description of the consequences of parental abuse
Summary: 2 Stars
I cannot join the rhapsody of praise critics have lavished on Susanna Sonnenberg's memoir, "Her Last Death." Initially I felt pity for the author, but soon enough, compassion changed to contempt, engagement became indifference. Sonnenberg is the daughter of enormously wealthy and spiritually bankrupt parents, and her youth was spent in astonishing material affluence. As if to compensate for the surfeit of money surrounding Susanna, her parents proved to be incompetent, emotionally distant and cruel, especially her mother, who may well lay claim to have her own room in the Hall of Fame for liars. "Her Last Death" is a voyeuristic, embarrassing description of abuse; lacking universal lessons, the memoir abounds with grimy, disheartening revelations
The premise of the memoir is an answer to a question: Why does a daughter refuse to fly from her Montana home to be at the bedside of her comatose mother? For the next 250 pages, Ms. Sonnenberg gives us, in excruciating detail, the reason for her decision. We learn that her mother, Daphne, is a pathological liar and a sex maniac. Disdainful of any personal boundaries that may separate her from her daughter, Daphne attempts to indoctrinate her young daughter into a world of hedonism where indiscriminate sexual encounters and casual use of addictive drugs abound..
Given this endless catalogue of abuse, it is paradoxical that Sonnenberg never figures out how to stop her own self-absorption. Both mother and daughter are self-absorbed and limited people; their addiction to conspicuous consumption distances themselves not only from each other, but from the real world. Since the Sonnenberg family possesses extraordinary wealth, it is often difficult for readers to respond sympathetically to Susanna's admission admission that she has never had to wait in a line in her life until she has reached adulthood?
The only value this overwrought memoir has is its painful realizations that abusive parents cripple their children's ability to become parents in their own right. Children with parents who have no boundaries become adults who doubt their own abilities to function as mothers or fathers. Susanna is panic stricken after giving birth to her first son, and her self-doubt rings true. Of all the pernicious influences Daphne had on Susanna, it is her residual mistrust of self that is most horrifying.
An adult so dwarfed by wealth that she doesn't understand the mechanics of making a grilled cheese sandwich is a severely limited human being, a person with whom most readers cannot identify. Human anguish abounds in this tell-all memoir, but it is tinctured by an environment in which only the super-rich live. When the mother gloats over successfully shoplifting toiletries, I hoped that she would have been arrested, tried and convicted. Instead, the punishment the mother deserves has been reserved for Sonnenberg's readers.
Book Review: Daphne Is No Angela
Summary: 2 Stars
I seldom pick a book after reading the blurbs offered by other writers. This time, largely based on Frank McCourt's praises, I did. However, Sonnenberg's memoir is no "Angela's Ashes." Both writers tell of childhoods wrought desperate by an irresponsible, addicted parent. (McCourt's often drunken father vs. Sonnenberg's sex-drugs-alcohol-crazed mother.) Although she grew up in affluence, Sonnenberg got the double-whammy of an abusive situation by having a critical, self-absorbed father compared to McCourt's Angela, who struggled to raise several children in dire poverty. Thus, Sonnenberg's story is a dreary, even frightening depiction of a parent's endless emotional, and yes, physical, brutality. I wanted Daphne dead by page 50. Daphne is the über-Mommy Dearest, exposing her daughter to her drug use (even introducing the child to cocaine) and her serial liaisons with a host of men. There is no humor or humanity revealed in this youth managed by a narcissist, perhaps sociopathic parent. The family's wealth and social connections makes the situation even more horrible. The grandparents and father had the resources to intervene; yet, they appeared to accept Daphne's behavior as normal. Unlike most victims of abuse, Sonnenberg was not silent. In the same matter-of-fact way that she has written the story from an adult perspective, as a child, she revealed alarming incidents to her friends, her friends' parents, hospital staff and teachers. No one intervened. Without anyone's help, it appears that in the end, the writer has built a normal, happy family-life that is so very different and distant from her childhood. Never have I read a book that is so hard to evaluate. It's impossible to separate the merits of the story (I'm still trying to find one) from the quality of writing (so-so at best) because reading it was such an uncomfortable, voyeuristic experience.Book Review: My Last Memoir
Summary: 2 Stars
Her Last Death, by Susanna Sonnenberg is a memoir. Susanna's story starts where the book ends, that is it starts with Susanna living a modest life in Montana with her husband and two young sons. When her Aunt calls her to say that her mother has been involved in an accident and is in a coma, Susanna struggles with the decision to leave her family for her mother's bedside. The rest of the novel explains why Susanna decided not to go.
Susanna Sonnenberg grew up with plenty of wealth and in many ways led a privileged life. Her mother, having too much money for her own good, married, had two daughters, and divorced all at a very young age. While Susanna was a young girl, all of her real problems seemed to be rooted and tangled-up with the relationship that she shared with her beautiful, manipulative, lying, cheating mother, who also happened to be addicted to drugs, and sex.
Susanna (much like her mother) at a very young age, became a stunning, manipulative, lying, cheating bitch who was ridiculously addicted to extreme sexual incidences. In my opinion, neither of them was one bit likeable. In fact, I can't think of one character in this whole book that I cared for. Not the sister, the aunt, the father, not even Susanna's husband.
Like many memoirs, this is one person's perspective of their screwed up childhood and their brave struggle to somehow come out on top. I've never been a big fan of memoirs in general and this book did nothing to change my mind.
I'd like to apologize in advance if I gave too much of this book away, but honestly, my review pretty much tells the whole story. If you think you'd enjoy the dirty details, then you'd enjoy this memoir.
Book Review: Susanna's the Real Deal
Summary: 5 Stars
I met Susanna when I took a writing workshop from her in Montana. She's one of the most kind and generous women I have had the pleasure of meeting. I immediately bought her book and read it through in just a couple of days, which means I could not put it down. Many times people who write memoirs do so because they look back on a life that was very unusual and understand how it helped shape their thinking and decision making, sometimes to their own undoing. They know they have changed and wonder if their experience may help someone else. People who read memoirs are curious, sometimes because they have gone through similar experiences and sometimes because they haven't. Unfortunately, there are those in the latter category who read a memoir and than pass judgment on what they've read. They judge the writer.
This makes me wonder. What would a memoir be if the writer decided to write about only the things they thought would not offend, or the mistakes they think will be the easiest to stomach. That would be the opposite of what happened in James Frey's book, "A Million Little Pieces." He exaggerated some of his history, but his book still touched many lives and because of that, has value. Susanna has amazing courage and gave me inspiration to be able to tell my own story without the fear of judgment which would be sure to come. Her life is amazing and the fact that she is successful in career, marriage, and motherhood at such a young age after all she went through is truly remarkable to this reader.
Book Review: Was my mom any better?
Summary: 3 Stars
After reading the Sonnenberg's introduction, I expected her mother to be a heinous beast, and as I read, I kept waiting for that ugly woman to surface--what could be so awful to prevent Sonnenberg from speaking to her ever again?
Some ugliness does come about--there are instances when the mother's behavior is weird, embarrassing, and maybe a little illegal. BUT, if you look at it in the proper context and circumstance (that the mother was probably bi-polar or with some other emotional disorder--ie. she's sick; and the time in America--the 60's where such emphasis on childcare as we have now did not exist, nor did the knowledge about how bad drugs are etc, the fact she was a single mother at a very young age...), it all makes perfect sense to me. I could not muster the kind of support Sonnenberg seems after. Her mother did the best she could as far as I can see.
I thought Sonnenberg's behavior was much crazier than her mother's. But that seems to be her point. This book seems to be Sonnenberg's attempt to explain her own behavior by blaming it on her mother's influence.
I thought this memoir would document similar parenting as found in The Glass Castle. Anyone looking for a great memoir, look there instead. Castle is compelling, a page turner, and you'll feel that your own parenting is saintly.