The Mercy Papers chronicles a mother’s death, a young woman’s grief Book Review

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance: The five stages of grief as identified by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross are all there in Robin Romm’s The Mercy Papers, a Memoir of Three Weeks. But it’s the first three that have Romm in a vise grip in her raw rendering of the final weeks before her 56-year-old mother Jackie succumbs to the cancer she fought for nine years.

In a non-linear journal of the time she spent on deathwatch in her parents’ house —along with her father, her dog Mercy, other assorted canines and cats, friends, family and a parade of nurses and social workers — Romm seems literally to pour out blood and guts as she tells her story. She minces no words when it comes to the emotional and visual horrors of the advanced disease resulting in tumors protruding through her mother’s skin and threatening to split open her distorted purple breast.

But the book is not without its humorous moments — though they always are tinged with sadness — like a description of Mercy dressed for Halloween in a Brussels sprout hat and an old, green, too-big dog sweater. The levity is lost on Jackie, though, whose steady doses of morphine leave her semi-conscious much of the time.

Throughout the book, Romm struggles mightily with the fact that she can’t tell her mom — once a vivacious, passionate attorney — that it’s OK for her to die. Toward the end, when Romm confesses this dilemma to her mother, she finds it doesn’t matter. “I dun need your permission,” her mother says with slurred speech.

“This is what I wanted to hear; it’s my release,” Romm writes. But even in moments like this, the heavy cloud of dread and grief still hangs over every word, every paragraph and every chapter.

Indeed, Romm does not once blink in her stark tale of death. Her anger and sadness are not tied up in a pretty, silver-lining conclusion. The point of the book seems to only be this: to tell the truth about love and loss.

But there is an important take-home lesson here: Spend time now with the ones you love. In that vein, The Mercy Papers serves as a cautionary tale to those who still have their mothers — and a resonant survivor’s song for those who don’t.

“The Mercy Papers, a Memoir of Three Weeks,” by Robin Romm. Simon & Schuster, 2009. 211 pages.

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by Nancy Larson

‘Waiting for Daisy’ not your typical infertility saga Book Review

At 35, Peggy Orenstein’s feelings about motherhood suddenly blast through ambivalence, race toward desire and speed straight to obsession. It’s a familiar theme: another 30- or 40-something woman who has put off pregnancy only to discover she really might not be able to have it all.

But while there have been countless books and articles about the seesaw struggle of infertility, Orenstein’s memoir is honest, insightful and even funny.

With one ovary and a singular vision, the successful feminist author’s quest at one point leads her to a destination well-known to many couples: in vitro fertilization. To initiate that process, Orenstein is instructed to give herself injections of the purified urine of postmenopausal Italian nuns.

It’s a new spin on the concept of immaculate conception, Orenstein writes, a child to be conceived not through intercourse, but after a virgin’s pee helps produce an abundance of eggs. “Putting voodoo dolls beneath my mattress no longer seemed so unreasonable,” Orenstein realizes. But neither spells nor needles do the trick.

That her marriage stays intact is the true miracle. Orenstein does not mince words about the toll that sex on demand, her necessary self-absorption and a calendar completely controlled by her cycles took on their relationship. “I can’t do this,” her husband admits, telling her he will only continue to try for a baby if she dials back her desperation.

With her fingers crossed behind her back, Orenstein promises to stop caring so much. Feeling like a complete failure, she takes in a stray cat, then a young friend willing to lend her womb. Almost no option goes untried.

In another literary work whose title also begins with “Waiting for” but ends with “Godot,” the subject of the characters’ anticipation never shows up. This book may not be quite as important as Samuel Beckett’s epic play, but for the reader and the author, its ending is worth the wait.

By Nancy Larson

“The Veronicas Sweeten Up Sauget” Concert Review

The Veronicas

Call it “chick rock,” but I’m not sure they’ll mind. This doll-sized duo from Australia packs a pretty powerful right hook. With vibrantly fierce pop-punk melodies and fem-tastically bold lyrics, “girl power” is here to stay.

Identical twins Lisa and Jess Origliasso made a two-for-one splash in the industrially grimey Sauget as they performed for a small hoard of screaming teens and tweens. As the shimmery, doe-eyed duo shimmied and bopped across the stage to the opening track, “Untouched”, ear-slicing squeals shook the air. Hot-pink-and-glitter-clad bodies jumped and flailed bangled arms in the air.

The exquisite and funky Aussie fashionistas took turns shaking their petite booties and strutting from one end of the stage to the other, shaking outstretched fan hands, singing to the lead guitarist or bassist, and rocking out with each other. Between songs, they thanked the squealing audience with thick Australian accents, claiming that they were having “so much fun.”

In spite of Jess’s recent blonde makeover, the twins’ sugary, buzzing vocals were indistinguishable from one another. Swapping vocal parts like raiding each others’ closets, the two shared the spotlight with equal relish. While one twin sang into the microphone, the other sang her heart out along with her sister.

During their cover of the mid-90s Tracy Bonham rock hit, “Mother Mother,” the leather-jacket-swathed Lisa took the lead vocal, while the spandex-wrapped Jess screeched, “Everything’s fine!” For the unreleased (in the U.S.), “Everything,” Jess picked up her guitar for a bit of snapping pop rock, joined in adorable vocal harmony by her twin. Each track pumped with enough alt-chick-punk-rocker passion to embody a modern day Joan Jett, doubled and intensified.

The band’s most recent hit, “Take Me on the Floor,” with its electro-rock synth serenade, roused more squeals. Drummer Vik Foxx hammered the beats with true rock showmanship: stick spins, tosses, and hairy head banging. New bassist, Sherman, commanded the synth and the bassline with charmed enthusiasm uncharacteristic of the typically solid, stoic bass player role. Guitarist Jungle George, with his emo kid hair, sizzled the strings for some blazing lead solos.

Lyrics like “I wanna kiss a girl/I wanna kiss a boy,” may have been a little too suggestive for some of the younger audience members, hanging on balcony railings with tolerant adults chilling out in the background. But some of the lyrics, like in “Revenge is Sweeter Than You Ever Were,” or “Everything I’m Not,” spoke directly to the angsty teen heart and sought to lift it up from the dregs. As the twins belted out songs about not changing for anyone, they embodied the self esteem-boosting paradigm, and you could believe them, whether you were 8, 18 or 80.

“Acousterizing,” as Jess put it, the two picked the heart-breakers, “This Love,” and “Heavily Breaking.” Both songs showcased Lisa and Jess’s strong, yet sweet vocal stylings, but lyrically neither track was particularly profound. Girls, you’re great, but stick to the plugged version of yourselves next time.

The encore performance went out with a bang with the emotionally vindictive “This is How it Feels.” Swallowing down such bitter emotion requires the right amount of honey, which The Veronica’s have in spades. Accept no substitutes. Like rock n roll, girl power is here to stay.

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by Solange Deschatres

Under the SpellNew Line Theatre’s Putnam County Spelling Bee is loads of f-u-n Theatre Review

It was just like back in third grade, where I misspelled secretary with an “a” in the middle instead of an “e.” But 40-odd years and many misspellings later, it was “lues,” a rarely used word for syphilis, that bounced me from the bee.

Part of the fun of The Putnam County Spelling Bee is the nightly addition of three audience members, chosen from a list of reckless souls who sign up to be onstage. Before I was called to the microphone, two cast contestants whispered: “You can ask for a definition and ask to have the word used in a sentence.” “But don’t try to be funny,” warned the character of Marcy Park (Alexis Kinney), an overachiever who speaks six languages, plays three instruments and is not allowed to cry.

Marcy is one of six elementary school spellers whose angst illustrates the toll that competition takes on us all. Others include William Barfee (Nicholas Kelly), a nasally sounding boy with only one working nostril and a magic spelling foot; Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Emily Berry), whose two dads’ last names are Schwartz and Grubenierre; and Leaf Coneybear (Aaron Allen), a second runner-up who’s only there because the two who finished ahead of him had to go to a bat mitzvah. Mitch Mahoney (John Rhine) is an ex-con with a community service obligation to be a “Comfort Counselor” who gives hugs and hands out juice boxes to the losers (mine was apple).

New Line’s production at Washington University’s South Campus Theatre (the old CBC High School) was poignant and funny. Barfee (pronounced “BarFAY”) -- who at first bristles and corrects the judges when they mispronounce it “Barfy” but is later worn down to a resigned “Whatever” -- carried off the renowned magic foot spelling song and routine with aplomb.

The signature piece of Boy Scout Chip Tolentino (Mike Dowdy), “My Unfortunate Erection,” exemplifies why, even though the play’s characters are children, it’s more of an adult performance, complete with certain four-letter words that everyone knows how to spell.

Also not to be missed is the sharp performance of Deborah Sharn as a co-judge and former spelling bee champ Rona Lisa Peretti (she reminds us several times that she won with the word “syzygy”). That the meaning of her prize-winning word is “a type of unity” is fitting, as the spellers discover they all have nerdiness and insecurity in common. Judge and Vice Principal Douglas Panch (Brian Claussen) is also their soulmate in that regard.

Sabotage, the casting off of perfection, and the tender beginnings of love stir the emotional pot of act two. In the end, only one speller emerges victorious, but everyone who came to see the play also wins, in terms of money and time well spent for a night’s entertainment.

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by Nancy Larson

Mei-Ling Hopgood ‘Lucky Girl’ is a memoir of mixed blessings Book Review

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Unlike many adopted children, Mei-Ling Hopgood did not go in search of her genetic roots. Instead, at 23, her birth family—mother, father and seven siblings—found her.

Growing up in the Detroit area, Hopgood didn’t give much thought to her first seven months of her life, spent in Taiwan in the care of an American nun. Her eventual home with Chris and Rollie Hopgood and her two younger, adopted brothers was a nurturing place where the subject of adoption was an ongoing discussion.

Just after graduating with a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, Hopgood took a job at the Detroit Free Press and then moved to St. Louis to work for the Post-Dispatch. But no news story would rival the personal one that was beginning to unfold in Hopgood’s life.

In 1997, after an appeal from her Chinese family, Hopgood booked a flight to Taiwan that would bring some answers but more questions. A request by the family to bring large-size clothes for a brother whom the family adopted just before Hopgood was given up was one of many ways the cultures clashed.

The heartbreaks of being female in mid-to-late 20th century China play out not only in Hopgood’s having to leave her family, but also in the tortured life of loss and subjugation led by her birth mother.

In many ways, Hopgood knows she really is the lucky one — and so do her Chinese sisters.

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By Nancy Larson