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sde's review against another edition
3.0
The beginning of this book was slow and vague. I understand why the author wanted to include information about her grandmother's early life, but she was a couple of generations removed from it, and most of the information is already available elsewhere. Because there are no footnotes, we don't know where the author got the information and how accurate it it.
Once the story gets to the point where Tamar, the author's mother, is born, it gets a lot more interesting, probably because they author was able to supplement her research and reading with her mother's own memories.
Throughout the book, but especially at the end, there is discussion of how Day was able (or sometimes not) to weave her belief in supporting all of God's children and the difficulty of living with needy, mentally unstable and even dangerous people. This was very interesting, and the acknowledgement of the difficult made Day more real to me rather than a saintly figure. But if you do not like your heroes' faults exposed, do not read this book. It is not a "tell all" book - there is obviously a lot of love and respect between the author and her mother and grandmother. But there were also a lot of questionable decisions and mistakes in their lives. I would have loved to have read more about the lives of the other 8 children in Tamar's family, although that might have been crossing a privacy line with the author's siblings. It was such an interesting and non-conventional upbringing and obviously the kids had very different experiences depending on where they were in birth order. The author is the youngest of the nine, and thus her experiences were colored a certain way. Because she was the youngest, though, she likely knew more about her grandmother and mother than some of the others, if only because they had more time to spend with her.
Once the story gets to the point where Tamar, the author's mother, is born, it gets a lot more interesting, probably because they author was able to supplement her research and reading with her mother's own memories.
Throughout the book, but especially at the end, there is discussion of how Day was able (or sometimes not) to weave her belief in supporting all of God's children and the difficulty of living with needy, mentally unstable and even dangerous people. This was very interesting, and the acknowledgement of the difficult made Day more real to me rather than a saintly figure. But if you do not like your heroes' faults exposed, do not read this book. It is not a "tell all" book - there is obviously a lot of love and respect between the author and her mother and grandmother. But there were also a lot of questionable decisions and mistakes in their lives. I would have loved to have read more about the lives of the other 8 children in Tamar's family, although that might have been crossing a privacy line with the author's siblings. It was such an interesting and non-conventional upbringing and obviously the kids had very different experiences depending on where they were in birth order. The author is the youngest of the nine, and thus her experiences were colored a certain way. Because she was the youngest, though, she likely knew more about her grandmother and mother than some of the others, if only because they had more time to spend with her.
k8iedid's review against another edition
5.0
I knew very little about Dorothy the person and I'm so glad I started learning with something written by a family member. As a person who loves complicated mother/daughter stories, this is FANTASTIC.
espressoreader's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
1.0
Dorothy was a communist cupcake with cafeteria Catholic sprinkles. Could she be in heaven? Absolutely. Is she a good example? Absolutely not.
mmichellemoore's review
4.0
I didn’t know much about Dorothy Day and only knew the Catholic Worker as it applied to the soup kitchen. This was a nicely paced biography of her personal life and interactions with her daughter and family.
med251's review against another edition
3.0
Fascinating history. Writing is dense though and jumps around quite a bit and it's helpful to know some of the history around that time and other historical figures that Dorothy Day interacted with...overall I liked it.
raldrich24's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.0
I really enjoyed this book, and learned a lot! I appreciated that the author was Dorothy Day's granddaughter--I think it allowed us to see a side of Dorothy that maybe another author would not have experienced. I also really appreciated that so much of the book discussed Dorothy's daughter Tamar. It was interesting to see inside of the dynamic between mother and daughter, and how even in their differences, they had an irreconcilable bond. This book is for more than just Catholics--it is for anyone who enjoys learning about people, especially those who are strong of will, dedicated to helping others, and seen as an outsider to most of the world.
persey's review against another edition
2.0
Too much emoting, not nearly enough detail of the later years of Dorothy’s life, and the author lost sight of her subject far too often as she gazed in repetitive navel-gazing and a lot of projection. It’s an interesting enough take on the early years of the Dorothy’s social activism but it deteriorates once the focus shifts to Dorothy’s daughter. This is really a vehicle for the author to work out her own issues.
brytonmparker's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
bartendm's review against another edition
3.0
A memoir/biography of Dorothy Day written by her granddaughter. It gave a lot of insight into Dorothy Day as a person and what it would be like to grow up with someone like that in your family. Much of the life of her daughter, Tamar, is included, as might be expected. It is not a good book to learn about Dorothy Day if you know almost nothing about her as I did. It has lots of trivial details which can make for many dull sections if you are not interested in knowing every tiny thing about Dorothy. I am sure there must be many who are, but probably not the general reading public. I find it hard to believe that Dorothy Day would actually achieve saint status after reading this, as she was an admirable, but very human woman. Her daughter, Tamar, had a pretty hard life because of who Dorothy was, even though they loved each other very much. Thanks to Kate for sharing the inside view and I hope she got a lot from the experience of writing this book.