In this memoir, the author chooses to have two narrators, himself as one, and his mother as the other. This style makes for quite an interesting story, skipping back and forth in time, from the child's life, to that of his mother. Although many time changes occur, they are quite easy to keep up with, as the two narrator's of the book, James, and his mother, alternate chapters. For this reason, it is also very easy to compare the childhood of each of the main characters. Although the chapters aren't always during the same time periods of the respective characters, they are close enough that similarities can be seen, and parallels can be drawn. This is one of my favorite parts of the novel, seeing the main character, James, grow up with his mother Rachel.
In summary, the author tells the story of both his mother, and himself growing up. His mother was raised Jewish, but became Christian before James was born, which was thus the religion he was raised in. Both had very strict discipline, in their respective religions. The memoir focuses more ...
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... he is, and can give many readers much more than that; valuable lessons in life. To grade this book on things such as structure, vocabulary, and even sales would be to miss the entire point of the memoir. Read it as a memoir with great insight and a damn good owners manual on how to get along in this world, and I can guarantee you won't be let down; in fact, you will probably be quite impressed. But if what you're looking for is a book that needs to live up to the standards of a great piece of literature, you're looking in the wrong place.
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