Cathleen Schine

The anxieties and impossibilities of trying to care for aging parents who refuse to allow themselves to be cared for take center stage in Schine's novel, which takes its title from a Philip Larkin poem (They fuck you up, your mum and dad / They may not mean to, but they do.) The aching loneliness of elderly Joy, who is determined not to be a burden to her children, is evident even with Schine's narrative style that occasionally veers close to the edge of slapstick but never quite falls over show more the cliff. The frustrations of daughter Molly, trying to parent her parent via long-distance from California, and the responsibility-dodging brother Daniel, seemed all too familiar. The story is by turns heart-breaking and hilarious, and lingered with me after I turned the last page. show less

Cathleen Schine's newest novel, They May Not Mean To, But They Do is a gem. It tells the story of a family who are at the stage of life where they must deal with aging parents.

The mother Joy is described by her adult daughter Molly as thus:
"They found Joy disconcerting, and they were right. She was so intimate and so remote, as remote as a faraway, nameless planet sometimes; sometimes soft and sympathetic. She was talkative, yet she heard everything you said or thought you might say. She was show more wise and she was deep, intuitive, the kind of person to whom people confided their darkest secrets; she was scatterbrained and easily distractible and often forgot people's darkest secrets, which, as she always said, was just as well."
Joy lives with her husband, Aaron, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, in the apartment they have had for many years on the Upper West Side in New York City. Joy is caring for Aaron at home, while also still working part-time cataloguing items at a museum. The museum would like to see Joy retire, but Joy needs the job both for the money and her sanity.

Molly divorced her husband and now lives with her female partner in California. She likes her life in California, and flies home a few times a year to help organize her parents bills and medical issues. Daniel is married and lives in lower Manhattan with his wife and two pre-teen daughters. He works hard, and his responsibilities to his own family mean that he doesn't see his parents as often as Joy would like.

As Aaron seems to be getting worse, Joy has a hard time keeping up. It is too difficult to take Aaron out for walks, and they subsist almost completely on takeout food delivered from the local coffee shop. Piles of papers start to build up, and the apartment is getting too cluttered. Even the part-time housekeeper isn't helping.

Schine's moving novel deals with issues that most families will have to face- aging parents. She is empathetic to Joy's plight, and in her creates an indelible character many people will relate to. We can see how difficult it is for Joy to watch her husband failing, and to know that very soon she won't be able to care for him alone.

Molly and Daniel have their own lives to handle, and all the emotions they feel about what is happening to their parents- the guilt, anger, sadness, and frustration- are universal to adult children everywhere.

Schine gets all the details right too. You can feel the claustrophobia of Joy and Aaron's apartment, and smell the food cooking for their Thanksgiving dinner. This is a truly sensory book.

I've read some of Schine's other novels- The New Yorkers, The Three Weismanns of Westport, and Fin & Lady- and They May Not Mean To, But They Do is her best book yet. For someone as young as she is to put herself so completely into the character of Joy is a brilliant achievement. Anyone who has older parents will do well to read this book, if only to get a glimpse of what they are going through. I highly recommend it. show less

Mamie Kunstler, a Jewish refuge from 1939 Vienna, travels to the safety of Santa Monica with her parents and grandfather. As a young refuge from a formerly well-off and artistic family, she meets many famous and talented artists of the 30s and 40s. Her grandson, Julian, a “woolgatherer”, according to his mother, finds himself suddenly girlfriendless and apartmentless in NY in 2019. When Mamie, at 93, breaks her wrist and needs some temporary assistance, Julian moves into her little house show more in Venice Beach. Soon, this short-term arrangement is forced to be longer when Covid strikes, and Mamie begins to tell Julian stories of her life and their family.

I loved Mamie and her relationship with Julian and the way she told him her stories of Los Angeles in the 1940s. There were a lot of historical tidbits and it reminded me, at times, of Anthony Marra’s “Mercury Pictures Presents” because of the location and the time period. Schine has a light touch, and except for a few pages where I thought Mamie went on too long (but maybe that was deliberate, in the way that stories of the past are sometimes told), I found the whole book delightful. I also spent a lot of time googling people and places and have a new old book on my Kindle, “Prince Jan, St. Bernard”.

I was sorry to have this book end, and hope Mamie, Agatha, Julian, and Sophie are still enjoying cocktails and tea in the garden under the stars.

Thank you to the publisher and LibraryThing for the ARC! show less

If you're not a dog person, this book probably won't hold much interest for you. (Also, what is wrong with you?) It follows about half a dozen residents of a nondescript block on the Upper West Side of Manhattan - human residents and canine ones. The dogs bring people together in unexpected ways and their interactions help forge a community of sorts. The dog characters are wonderful, especially Beatrice, a white pit bull with a big heart and a worrywart of an owner. The humans are show more wonderfully drawn, too. From the self-described spinster at 40 to the just-dumped 26 year old and her underachieving brother to the newly-divorced man trying to figure out how to be alone in his 50s, Schine treats each of her characters with affection and - often- bemusement. Doris, the "antagonist" of the story, is especially well-done in all her self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

The New Yorkers is a love letter to the city, as well as a paean to the special way dogs have of bringing us out of ourselves and to each other. show less