Above Us Only Sky: Essays - Softcover

Winik, Marion

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580051448 ISBN 13: 9781580051446

Publisher: Seal Press, 2005

Synopsis

Whether she is writing about arguing with her mother over her choice of oufit-at 46-on a family cruise, getting her tubes tied and the importance of a woman's right to choose, or her frequent battles with her rebel pyromaniac teenage son, writer and NPR commentator Marion Winik is earthy, searingly honest, and unfailingly witty in the face of adversity. In this new collection of essays, a treat for dedicated fans and new readers alike, Winik explores how she — and other women — face midlife and aging without getting tangled up in the past or the future, all with her trademark humor and insistence on the truth-the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The collection is divided into five sections: "Back," about her family and her past; "Underfoot," about being a mom; "In the Mirror," about growing older; "Above us Only Sky," about a key turning point in her life, and "Ahead," about facing the future.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

NPR personality Winik (The Lunch-Box Chronicles) mines the intertwined humor and poignancy of life's exigencies in this earthy essay collection, taking stock of moments from childhood to motherhood and reliving them with relish. By turns heartfelt and cutting, playful and contemplative, Winik's chatty narration and musings emerge as vivid brushstrokes on a crowded canvas, jottings of her thoughts at both pivotal moments and more introspective times. With chewable, digestible essays divided among five sections (on her upbringing, growing older, her early adulthood, motherhood and modern life), Winik explores her metamorphoses with bracing frankness and clever turns of phrase, beaming her hard-won enlightenment into a darker past that involved abetting her dying husband's suicide. As she traces her path from New Jersey to Austin, Tex., to rural Pennsylvania, she brings her forthrightness and wit to bear on topics from blended family life to her religious ambivalence (reflected in the collection's title), with a heritage of "diluted, distilled" Judaism. Raising two teenage boys and a toddler in her 40s, she considers the disconnect between the two ages in memorably wry style: "Toppled from my pedestal like a statue of Saddam Hussein, I will be rejected as powerfully as I was once embraced." (Oct.)
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From Booklist:

Though often compared to Erma Bombeck and Anna Quindlen, with perhaps a dash of Garrison Keillor or Bill Maher thrown in, intrepid NPR commentator Winik's voice is as unique as her observations and as recognizable as her experiences. By turns pithy and poignant, outraged and outrageous, Winik's latest collection of essays once again mines the rich veins of her personal life as she muses on themes both familiar (marriage and motherhood) and fresh (post-9/11 America), doing so with the unapologetic frankness and unbridled humor fans have come to expect. And while the laughs are still there, there's also a tempered maturity that nicely balances Winik's self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek approach. Middle age is upon her, a perfect time for reflection and prediction, appreciation and apprehension, making amends and making a difference. Equally comfortable commenting on the Taliban as on tattoos, blended families and borrowed fame, the always entertaining Winik is at her most eloquent, however, when examining her own life through a precisely calibrated personal microscope. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Seal Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1580051448
• ISBN 13: 9781580051446
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 219