Playing House Audiobook By Lauren Slater cover art

Playing House

Notes of a Reluctant Mother

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Playing House

By: Lauren Slater
Narrated by: Abby Craden
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About this listen

Acclaimed author Lauren Slater ruminates on what it means to be family. Lauren Slater's rocky childhood left her cold to the idea of ever creating a family of her own, but a husband, two dogs, two children, and three houses later, she came around to the challenges, trials, and unexpected rewards of playing house. In these autobiographical pieces, Slater presents snapshots of domestic life, populating them with the gritty details and jarring realities of sharing home, life, and body in the curious institution called "family." She asks difficult questions and probes unsettling truths about sex, love, and parenting. In these pages, Slater introduces us to her struggles with her mother, her determination to make a home of her own, her compromises in deciding to marry (her conflicts manifesting as an affair on the eve of her wedding), her initial struggle to connect with her newborn child, and the dilemmas of mothering with a mental illness. She writes openly about her decision to abort her second pregnancy and her later decision to have a second child after all. She tells us about the searing decision to have elective double mastectomy and how her love for her husband was magically rekindled after she saw him catch fire in a chemical accident.

It's not all mastectomies and chemical fires, though. Slater digs into the everyday challenges of family living, from buying a lemon of a car and fighting back menacing weeds to gaining weight and being jealous of the nanny. Beautifully written, often humorous, and always revealing, these stories scrutinize the complex questions surrounding family life, offering up sometimes uncomfortable truths.

©2013 Lauren Slater (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Essays Motherhood Relationships Women Marriage Nonfiction Witty
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Editorial reviews

After a traumatic childhood, psychologist Lauren Slater discovers deep complexity in motherhood. Abby Craden takes on the musicality of Lauren Slater's memoir of a mother. Speaking with intimacy, Craden pulls us into these stories as a good friend does. She gives well-deserved warmth to Slater's brutally honest struggles. This audiobook may feel uncomfortable at times in its forthrightness, but ultimately it proves both loving and gratifying. Listeners who want to go beyond the cliché of motherly perfection will be moved by this audiobook.

What listeners say about Playing House

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I expected more... the narrator was boring

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Not sure, boring reader, boring story

Would you ever listen to anything by Lauren Slater again?

No

How could the performance have been better?

Of course, little more up beat would be nice

What character would you cut from Playing House?

The narrator

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1 person found this helpful