Books roundup: Memoirs

'Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter' by Melissa Francis details the newscaster's troubled relationship with her mother. (Photo: AP)

'Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter' tells "how not to raise children"'Oddly Normal' is a "touching, funny and frank memoir"'Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler' offers "spirited charm"'All Gone' is a "raw and personal memoir" about a loved one with dementia

4:32PM EST November 20. 2012 - The Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter
By Melissa Francis
Weinstein Books, 292 pp.
*** out of four

Hollywood's obsession with stage mothers a la Toddlers and Tiaras and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo exposes its dark underbelly in Melissa Francis' memoir. The Fox Business News anchor, best known for her childhood role as Cassandra Cooper Ingalls on the hit show Little House on the Prairie, shares stories about growing up with an abusive, controlling mother obsessed with raising the perfect specimen. As Francis finds personal and professional success, eventually heading off to Harvard and falling in love, her older sister Tiffany crumbles under repeated neglect and disrespect, an emotional toll that mires the sisters' relationship and ultimately has a more tragic ending. Francis, now a mother herself, delivers a quick but heartbreaking guide for how not to raise children. -- Lindsay Deutsch

Oddly Normal: One Family's Struggle To Help their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality
By John Schwartz
Gotham Books, 290 pp.
*** 1/2

What do you do when you know your son is gay before he does? What do you do when that son wants to dye his hair purple? What do you do when that same son attempts suicide at 13? You write about it. John Schwartz's talents as a writer -- he is a national correspondent for The New York Times -- shine in this very personal, touching, funny and frank memoir. Anyone with a teenager, gay or straight, will be able to relate to a parent's struggle when dealing with their troubled child. ADHD. Asperger's. Bipolar disorder. Bullies, even. It's all here, with a healthy dose of love thrown in. Honest to a fault. A keeper. --- Craig Wilson

Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler
By Trudi Kanter
Scribner, 258 pp.
** 1/2

Trudi Kanter's memoir is blessed with a wonderful title and an even better back story. Hers is a long-forgotten Holocaust tale that was discovered in a used bookshop by a British editor and now has been brought back to print. In the 1930s, Kanter was a chic Viennese hat designer who also happened to be Jewish – and madly in love with a Jewish businessman named Walter Ehrlich. The couple married and barely managed to stay a harrowing step ahead of the Nazis, thanks to Trudi's smarts and talents as a designer. She's not much of a writer – the narrative is disjointed – but her spirited charm will win you over. -- Jocelyn McClurg

All Gone: A Memoir of My Mother's Dementia, with Refreshments
By Alex Witchel
Riverhead, 224 pp.
***

Alex Witchel's wise and worldly mother had a daily commandment: "Tell me everything that happened today." It's one of the main reasons Witchel became a journalist. Little did The New York Times staff writer know she'd be using her vast talents as a keen observer of life to write this raw and personal memoir in which she watches her once-vibrant and no-nonsense mother slip away because of dementia, right before her eyes. "As my mother began the torturous process of disappearing in plain sight, I retreated to my kitchen, trying to reclaim her at the stove," Witchel writes. Hence the recipes at the end of each chapter. Meatloaf, kerplach, potato kugels, anyone? -- Wilson

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