Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt 2010

Published : March 19, 2010 :: 13:03:44 [ 3,041 views ]

Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt 2010

Grieving from his daughter's untimely death, due to an asymptomatic heart condition, Roger and his wife Ginny leave their home on Long Island and move in with Harris, their widowed son-in-law, and his three children: Jessica, Sammy, and James.

From being content grandparents, living lives of their own, Roger and Ginny are thrown back into the world of changing nappies, bedtime stories, checking homework and talking toys. And though still sad about their daughter’s death, they somehow learn to cope and keep each day moving.

Making Toast is the story of life after a traumatic experience. It’s about getting up, pushing others to try, and completing everyday. Roger’s memoir is beautifully told through short passages documenting everyday events. It shows how a family reforms and strives to live on. It’s about grandparents becoming parents again, showing three lively children how to live.

The book is written with an amazing amount of heart and depth, each passage a secret story waiting to be told. Each person is drawn beautifully and delicately – showcasing their strengths and small cracks. Ginny was my favorite – her strength was admirable and her heart was enviable. The children were adorable and written excellently. Their enthusiasm and frustrations start your emotions going, to the point where you feel you’re living amongst them.

I enjoyed the mundane times and the explosive times, there having to deal with talking toys or fishing teeth out of cereal. I loved that the book was written that way – through small, short stories that defied time; a train-of-thought sort of writing that made sense. But most of all, I like how Amy was represented, through older stories and happy memories. A terrific mother, wife, daughter, and doctor, she was amazing and it was obvious why everyone grieved.

Rosenblatt seems to have that rare gift of transferring the emotions we all feel into easy and simple words of understanding, but then being professor of English he has a head start on most of us.

Making Toast wasn’t about the sorrow of losing someone – it was about coping and living afterwards and making everything normal again. Not just for those around you but for yourself as well. I have read so many books concentrate on loss, they forget about the afterwards. I think that’s why I liked this book so much – for me, it’s not about the loss anymore, and it’s about making toast every morning and living your life.

Patty Brown