Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Delia Ephron

Genre:  Non Fiction, Memoir, Humor

240 pages, published September 17, 2013

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Sister Mother Husband Dog is a series of autobiographical essays about life, love, sisterhood, movies, and family written by Delia Ephron, best-selling author and writer of movies You’ve Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Hanging Up, and Michael.  Ephron deftly captures the rivalry, mutual respect, and intimacy that made up her relationship with her older sister and frequent writing companion.

Quotes

“Wanting to be liked can get in the way of truth.”

 

“Being in your twenties has changed a lot since I was in my twenties, but it is still a time everything awful that happens is awful in a romantic way, even if you don’t admit it (and you can’t admit it because then you would be less important in the tragedy you’re starring in, your own life)…because in your twenties you know, even if you don’t admit this either, even if this is buried deep in your subconscious, that you can waste an entire decade and still have a life.”

 

“Irony, according to the dictionary, is the use of comedy to distance oneself from emotion. I developed it as a child lickety-split. Irony was armor, a way to stick it to Mom. You think you can get me? Come on, shoot me, aim that arrow straight at my heart. It can’t make a dent because I’m wearing irony.”

 

“To the night version of her (mother) I owe free-floating anxiety. I am no longer a child in an unsafe home, but anxiety became habit. My brain is conditioned. I worry. I recheck everything obsessively. Is the seat belt fastened, are the reservations correct, is my passport in my purse? Have I done something wrong? Have I said something wrong? I’m sorry – whatever happened must be my fault. Is everyone all right, and if they aren’t, how can I step in? That brilliant serenity prayer: God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. To all the children of alcoholics I want to say, Good luck with that. If I don’t do it myself, it won’t get done (this belief is often rewarded in this increasingly incompetent world). Also, I panic easily. I am not the person you want sitting in the exit row of an airplane.

 

“I was always decoding. I was hyperalert.  Being hyperalert is a lasting thing. Being a watcher. Noticing emotional shirts, infinitesimally small tremors that flit over another person’s face, the jab in a seemingly innocuous word, the quickening in a walk, an abrupt gesture – the way, say, a jacket is tossed over a chair.”

 

My Take

All in all, I enjoyed listening to Sister Mother Husband Dog, Delia Ephron’s autobiographical series of essays.  Meg Ryan read the audiobook version and her voice captures perfectly the essence of Ephron who is often insightful and humorous in a wry way.  While Ephron is a talented writer who has had an interesting life, this book does not rise to the level of a must-read or even come to mind when a friend asks for a book recommendation.  Hence, the award of three stars.