Book Review: Art and Madness by Anne Roiphe

  Anne Roiphe is the National Book Award Finalist for Fruitful a Memoir.Her first book Digging Out(Memoir)  came out 3 years after her  rock marriage to Jack Richardson ended in 1963.Before writing 18 more books she was still living vicarously through other writers  such as Doc Humes, George Plimpton, and William  Styron.  This memoir Art and Madness covers those years where women were not
supposed to want anything beyond a home and family.  In the 1950's a career was not something you aspired to.
An respectable girl didn't aspire to a career.Anyone who has ever feel in love with pen and paper knows it's
an insatiable and unexplainable need.  I am not  rationalizing the affairs with the married writers but I do understand the need.Two things that struck me as odd one that girls were allowed to knit socks for their boyfriends in their college classes and two that so many wanted to knit socks for their boyfriends/fiancees.  They couldn't just go buy the  socks from the store? College education ain't cheap I think I would've wanted my money's worth! Seriously before I go off on a tangent the other thing I found interesting about the author in general was the fact  that it wasn't until 1978 article that she wrote about how her family displayed their Christmas tree setting
off a whirlwind of  criticism within the Jewish community ,that the author started to explore more Jewish themes  in her writing and would later receive the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award for the Literary Awards from the National Foundation for Jewish culture in June 7 2004.

My overall impression: reading this book was like trying to have an intelligent conversation with someone on a bumper car ride.  As soon as I was  getting interested in a certain year the author would suddenly jump back to 1953 or fast forward to 1961 making difficult  to stay with the story and knocking me off balance just like a bumper car ride would.  Her writing was exquisite,but hard to enjoy.  I don't have a problem with the author  exploring different years, but  unlike Running the Books by Mr. Stienberg it just didn't have that flow. I gave the book 3 and 1/2 stars out of 5.  
FTC DISCLOSURE    I would like to thank Doubleday for giving me the opportunity to review this book.
I dont  get any money from them but I am an Amazon Associate


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