The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

Will is the ideal son of a Jewish mother, gosh, any mother would love this guy who is loving and devoted, respectful and caring; what’s not to love?  Well, becoming a doctor or a lawyer might be nice too, but as his mother reminded him, he’s independently wealthy and doesn’t need to work.  This may be why he’s flirted with journalism, publishing, book editing, and hey, why not, a gourmet food website.

This book is primarily a monster homage to his mother who comes off as Mother Teresa, Maggie Thatcher, and Hillary Clinton all rolled into one.  Now he is self-admittedly not a writer.  Nonetheless, his ego has seeped into the text of this book.  Although it’s not clear to me what is his “memoir”, and what belongs to his Mother’s continued child-rearing.  Right at the end [and keep in mind that 90% of all readers skip to the end, at the beginning], he owns to receiving, from his mother, the appendix, most of the philosophical insights, and copious notes to be included into this book, including the Blog entries.  What are left are some editorial fill, details research, and a few anecdotal diary thoughts.

Yes, what I’m saying is that Mom is still running Will’s life.

Will is a small scope kind of guy; his mother is world-scope.  Will doesn’t want to be President of … or Board Chairman of … ; he likes the comforts of life, especially this life; not particularly interested in an afterlife.  That’s why he daubs his fingers in all these great books, but draws no over-arching conclusions from this entire 18-month period.  Will is not a big thinker and it is a shame that in penning his Mom’s self-eulogy, he couldn’t balance it with some thoughts of his own.

But at least … !     we’ve finally pinned him down. 

Yeah.!   Yes, the white-wine swilling imbecile who keeps putting books on the New York Times bestseller list, et al.  The guy who has a pile of “must-read” books by his bedside [that admittedly never get read] that are nonetheless advanced along the path towards Sonoma County Library selection. 

The guy who brags endlessly about this and that event where he co-hosts his “publishing pals”;  who also lets drop, humbly, all his charitable and volunteer time spent on numerous worthwhile causes in Africa and the Middle East.  I won’t mention name-dropping.

It is interesting to note that “our guy” says he doesn’t like to read about or discuss subjects like sex, defecation, and many other taboo subjects.  On the other hand, he documents his Mom’s list of 150 [famous] books that are all referenced in this {lengthy, 300-page} expansion of a New York Times article.  These guys loved fornication and shitting.

Now I am trying to keep an open mind but obviously failing.  We all have people in our lives, and/or families that are like this.  Generally, they live back in Ohio, and we’re out here in California.  Mammals like to stay with their own.