The Bridge Ladies
"A fifty-year-old Bridge game provides an unexpected way to cross the generational divide between a daughter and her mother. Betsy Lerner takes us on a powerfully personal literary journey, where we learn a little about Bridge and a lot about life. After a lifetime defining herself in contrast to her mother's "don't ask, don't tell" generation, Lerner finds herself back in her childhood home, not five miles from the mother she spent decades avoiding. When Roz needs help after surgery, it falls to Betsy to take care of her. She expected a week of tense civility; what she got instead were the Bridge Ladies. Impressed by their loyalty, she saw something her generation lacked. Facebook was great, but it wouldn't deliver a pot roast. Tentatively at first, Betsy becomes a regular at her mother's Monday Bridge club. Through her friendships with the ladies, she is finally able to face years of misunderstandings and family tragedy, the Bridge table becoming the common ground she and Roz never had. By turns darkly funny and deeply moving, The Bridge Ladies is the unforgettable story of a hard-won--but never-too-late--bond between mother and daughter"--
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Enjoyable, sometimes funny, sometimes sobering memoir of 5 Jewish women and their weekly bridge club of 50 years. Written by Betsy Lerner, a daughter of one member, who has had a conflicted relationship with her mother long into adulthood. Once she moved back to the same state and town as her mother, she forced herself to deal with the scars of her inner self. The members are now in their 80's and Betsy joins their bridge group, at first as an onlooker, and is stunned by the lack of intimacy among these women who not only played bridge together but socialized together as couples. For over a year she pursues this weekly game a well as individual interviews with the women about their youth, what they expected and what was expected of them in adulthood. Betsy also took up the game of bridge and took up a new therapist. Her main goal was to understand her mother and reconcile their differences. Through the game of bridge, Betsy learned a lot about herself and her failings. And it was a catalyst for finding common ground with her mother. Lerner writes honestly about herself and the women (sometimes brutally so, I think) but also with humor. It's a story about a woman who spent years in and out of therapy and was ready for maybe the biggest step and final hurdle in satisfying her inner child and her own self.
