Ayelet Waldman

Ayelet Waldman
Born (1964-12-11) December 11, 1964
Jerusalem, Israel
Occupation Novelist, essayist
Language English
Nationality Israeli-American
Education Wesleyan University
Harvard Law School
Notable works Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Bad Mother: A Chronicle...
Spouse Michael Chabon (m. 1993)
Children 4
Website
www.ayeletwaldman.com

Ayelet Waldman (born December 11, 1964) is an Israeli-American novelist and essayist. She has written seven mystery novels in the series The Mommy-Track Mysteries and four other novels. She has also written autobiographical essays about motherhood. Waldman spent three years working as a federal public defender and her fiction draws on her experience as a lawyer.

Early life and education

Ayelet Waldman's grandparents on both sides emigrated to North America from Ukraine early in the 20th century.[1] Her father, Leonard, was from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, but was living in Israel when he met her mother, Ricki. After they married, they moved to Jerusalem, where Waldman was born.[2] After the Six-Day War in 1967, her family moved to Montreal, then Rhode Island,[3] finally settling in Ridgewood, New Jersey when Waldman was in sixth grade.[4] Waldman attended Wesleyan University, where she studied psychology and government and studied in Israel in her junior year, graduating in 1986. She returned to Israel after college to live on a kibbutz, but found it too "sexist" for her taste.[5] Waldman then entered Harvard Law School. She graduated with a J.D. in 1991.

Legal and academic career

After graduating from law school, Waldman clerked for a federal judge, worked in a large corporate law firm in New York for a year, and then moved to California with Chabon, where she became a criminal defense lawyer. Waldman was a federal public defender for three years in the Central District of California.[3] Chabon mentioned on their first date that it was his intention to care for his children so his wife could pursue her career, which he did after the birth of their first and second children.[6] After the birth of her first child, she tried juggling legal work with mothering,[7] then left her job to be with her husband and child. This was short-lived.[8]

Waldman was an adjunct professor at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley from 1997 to 2003.[3][9] She also worked as a consultant to the Drug Policy Alliance, a resource center advocating a drug policy based on harm reduction.[10] While working as a university professor, she found writing scholarly articles uninteresting and intimidating,[11] so she began writing fiction instead.[12] According to Waldman, her fiction is "all about being a bad mother."[11] Waldman said she would not return to the legal profession.[13][14] In her fiction Waldman has drawn extensively on her legal experience.

Literary career

Waldman has written often about how she found full-time parenting to be monotonous.[15] She started writing various online and print articles about mothering[7] while at home on maternity leave after the birth of her first child[16][17] and again after she left her job as a public defender.[2] She has at various times said that she chose to write because it was not as time-consuming a career as the law,[18] because it gave her something to do during naptimes,[19] to keep her entertained,[20] because she was starved of someone to laugh at her jokes[21] and because it gave her a way of putting off going back to work.[13]

"Mommy-Track Mysteries"

In 1997 Waldman started writing mystery novels, thinking they would be "easy . . . light and fluffy."[22] At first she wrote in secret,[8] then with her husband's encouragement.[6] She has said that she chose mysteries because they are primarily about plot.[23] Waldman has said that her first mystery work, eventually published as Nursery Crimes, was her first attempt at creative writing,[20] describing it as her first piece of fiction "aside from my legal briefs."[13]

Waldman wrote seven novels about the "part-time sleuth and full-time mother" Juliet Applebaum. Waldman has said of Juliet, "She is me, well, she was me,"[14] and "They say to write what you know . . . so I wrote exactly what I knew."[22] Like Waldman, Juliet is a 5-foot-tall (1.5 m), red-headed former public defender with a nocturnal writer for a husband, who has become a stay-at-home mother but finds it boring. To relieve her boredom, Juliet works as a part-time detective. The collective title of the series is The Mommy-Track Mysteries. The novels are humorous and Waldman has said of her criminals, "My villains aren't villains. They're people whose crime you understand."[24] Waldman has previously said that Bye-Bye, Black Sheep is likely to be the last,[22] but her agent's website notes that she is working on more mysteries.[12]

Novels

In addition to the mystery genre, Waldman has published three other novels. Daughter's Keeper, published in 2003, drew on Waldman's experience as a criminal defense lawyer and representation of drug offenders.[9] The first manuscript was rejected thirty-one times.[20] It features a young woman, Olivia, who inadvertently becomes involved in the trafficking of drugs and her relationship with her emotionally-reserved mother. The book is also about the impact of federal drug policy, particularly mandatory minimum sentencing, on the criminal justice system.[13] The novel was inspired by a case Waldman handled.[25] The book was critically acclaimed[26][27][28] and was a finalist for the 2003 Northern California book Award.[4] An excerpt can be read here.

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, published in 2006, is about a Harvard-educated lawyer with a precocious stepson who loses a newborn child to SIDS.[29] The impetus was the loss of her own unborn child diagnosed with a genetic abnormality.[30] The book also deals with how mothers criticize each other's mothering, a theme in Waldman's nonfiction too.[31] It explores negative feelings towards one's own children.[23] The novel was also reviewed well in places,[32][33][34][35][36] although some reviews were negative.[37]

Don Roos wrote and directed a film based on the novel,[38] starring Natalie Portman, Lisa Kudrow and Scott Cohen. The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in August 2009.[39]

Waldman's Red Hook Road, published in 2010, is about two bereaved families in a small village in Maine and the effect of a family tragedy and class differences on marriage, styles of motherhood (including the domineering), and family life. It is also about boxing and boat building.[31][40][41][42][43]

Short stories

Waldman has contributed short stories to the anthologies McSweeney's Stories of Love and Neuroses (2003) and McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (2004), the latter of which was edited by Michael Chabon. The short story "Minnow," which appeared in McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, is about a woman who is haunted by her dead baby. Again, she regards this as related to the loss of her own child.[44] A horror film is being developed, based on the short story.[45]

Nonfiction

Waldman has written many personal essays for online and print publications aspects of motherhood, such as how women criticize each other's mothering (that is, the "mommy wars"),[46] combining paid work with motherhood,[15] and how the upbringing of those raised in a postfeminist era clashed with the reality of having to make professional sacrifices.[46] Her essays have also explored the sexuality of mothers[47] and of young people,[48] homework,[49] extended family life,[50] body image,[51] aging,[52] literary hoaxes,[53] and Jewish life.[54] Although most of her nonfiction is personal, she has also written on aspects of the criminal justice system.[55]

Motherlove

Her 2005 essay "Motherlove" was first published in the anthology Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race and Themselves, where she thought it would have only a small readership.[21] However, it was reprinted in the Modern Love section of the New York Times in March 2005 under the headline "Truly, Madly, Guiltily." It can be read online here.[47] Waldman's essay led to extensive and vitriolic debate,[44][56] on television shows like The View,[57] on internet blogs,[58][59] in coffee shops, and elsewhere.[60] Some people even threatened to report Waldman to the Department of Social Services in relation to the perceived mistreatment of her family.[6] Oprah Winfrey, who said she was "very brave" for speaking out,[25] invited Waldman onto her television show, to discuss her views on love, marriage, and motherhood.[16][61]

Bad Mother

After Waldman complained about the response to her essay, a friend suggested she write a book about it.[6] In 2009, Waldman published a collection of her personal essays, Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace.[62] The book argues that no woman can be a perfect mother,[18] that, in fact, competitive, neurotic parenting and having unrealistic expectations may be damaging to children.[63] Waldman contends that society (particularly women, in what she calls the "Bad Mother police") are too hard on other women’s parenting skills.[64] The book includes chapters on women's criticism of the mothering by other women, feminism, motherhood, and associated anxieties, including anxieties about breastfeeding, marriage, sexuality of mothers and teenagers, homework, mental illness, the loss of her unborn child, and her relationship with her mother-in-law. The book was a New York Times best-seller, and generally it received favorable reviews.[65][66][67][68]

Blogs

For a short time in 2004 and 2005, Waldman wrote a blog under the title "Bad Mother."[69] Her topics included sexuality, gay rights, motherhood, and her bipolar disorder. She said “A blog like this is narcissism in its most obscene flowering. But it's necessary. As a parent your days are consumed by other people's needs. This is payback for driving back and forth to gymnastics all week long.”[70] On her reaction to the criticism that her blogging engendered, she has said "It's ridiculous to be so willing to expose myself and at the same time be so hypersensitive. Those are two contradictory impulses no one person should have."[25] After an incident where she hinted at suicidal thoughts,[32] she decided to discontinue the blog. Although she found it a therapeutic way to channel frustrations[71] – likening the experience to "slashing my wrists and haemorrhaging all over the computer screen"[72] – she found it was having a deleterious effect on her writing.[25] Waldman blogged on the 2008 Democratic National Convention[73] and had a blog on her own website from 2008 to 2009 on a variety of subjects.[74]

Personal life

Waldman has been married to author Michael Chabon since 1993.[3][8] The couple work from the same office in the backyard of their home.[1][58] They edit each other's work,[20][22][25] and offer each other advice on writing,[2] sometimes going on "plot walks" to discuss issues.[16][45][75] Waldman and Chabon live in a 1907 Craftsman house[13] in the Elmwood district of Berkeley, California,[13] with their four children, Sophie (b. 1994), Ezekiel or "Zeke" b. 1997), Ida-Rose or "Rosie" (b. June 1, 2001), and Abraham or "Abe" (b. March 31, 2003).

Jewish upbringing

Waldman was raised in a Jewish family, attended Hebrew school and Jewish summer camps, and lived on a kibbutz in Israel for a year while in the tenth grade. She has said that her parents were atheists, but very Jewish,[71] and that her "whole life was immersed in Judaism, but in a very specific kind of Labor–Zionist Judaism."[5] Despite this, she did not celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah.[1] Many characters in her fiction are Jewish,[30] and her novel Love and Treasure is about the Holocaust.[1]

Mental illness

Waldman has written several times about her 2002 diagnosis of bipolar disorder, an illness that runs in her family,[10] and has spoken publicly about parenting while having a mental illness.[16][58][76][77]

Political activism

During the 2008 Presidential primaries and general election campaign, Waldman campaigned and raised funds in support of Barack Obama,[78] acting as a full-time volunteer, speaking at fundraisers;[79] she was appointed as a delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.[73]

Published works

"Mommy-Track" mystery novels

Other novels

Nonfiction

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Wilensky, Sheila, "Connections speaker is an engaging, witty chronicler of women's lives" Archived July 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine., Jewish Tucson, February 12, 210. Retrieved August 27, 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 Espinoza, Galina "Author, Author", People, December 16, 2002. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Profile: Ayelet Waldman", San Francisco Chronicle, October 22, 2003. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  4. 1 2 "Mystery authors you may have missed: Ayelet Waldman" Archived July 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  5. 1 2 Irwin, Rachel, "Israel, and other impossible questions" Archived July 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine., The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, February 9, 2007. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Thompson, Bob, "Bad Mother's Day: Ayelet Waldman takes on the cultural disquiet over parenting", Washington Post, May 5, 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  7. 1 2 Salter Reynolds, Susan, "Bad mother? Good writer" Archived May 3, 2012, at the Wayback Machine., Jakarta Globe, June 22, 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  8. 1 2 3 Duin, Steve "Lunch with Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman", Oregon Live, February 5, 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  9. 1 2 Edelstein, Wendy, "Boalt lecturer's first novel blends maternal fears with a hard-nosed view of America's drug war", UC Berkeley News, October 29, 2003. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  10. 1 2 "Author information: Ayelet Waldman", Internet Book List. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  11. 1 2 Gruner, Libby, "Mysteries and Mother-daughter stories", Literary momma.(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.)
  12. 1 2 "Ayelet Waldman" Archived June 11, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.. Lyceum Agency. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ybarra, Michael, "Taking on the Law: Ayelet Waldman lashes out at drug sentencing in her new novel", Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2003. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  14. 1 2 Bokma, Cindy, "Ayelet Waldman, bad mother and novelist", Conversations with famous writers, August 2, 2005. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  15. 1 2 Waldman, Ayelet, "Why it can be good to be a bad mother in a world where modern parenting has become hideously competitive", UK Daily Mail, May 28, 2009. (Retrieved August 25, 2010.)
  16. 1 2 3 4 Memmot, Carol, "Maternal ambivalence is Ayelet Waldman's baby", USA Today, February 23, 2006. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  17. ↑ "Super-secret Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman visit", Hot Metal Bridge, February 5, 2007. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  18. 1 2 Kasriel, Alex, "Interview: Ayelet Waldman", The Jewish Chronicle Online, July 16, 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  19. ↑ Briggett, Marlissa, "Quantity time", Harvard Magazine, March–April 2003. (Retrieved on August 27, 2010.)
  20. 1 2 3 4 Barnes&Noble, "Meet the writers: Ayelet Waldman" Archived December 10, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.. Retrieved August 27, 2010.
  21. 1 2 Kinsella, Bridget, "The Bad Mommy: Ayelet Waldman takes the heat and keeps on writing", December 30, 2005.(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.)
  22. 1 2 3 4 Lapriore, Elaine, "Keeping Track of Ayelet Waldman". Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  23. 1 2 Behe, Regis, "Sometimes, it’s impossible to like your children", Tribune Review, February 12, 2006.(Retrieved August 27, 2010.)
  24. ↑ Lara, Adair, "Cloak, dagger, carpool lane and diaper bag: There's a suspicious number of female mystery writers in the Bay area", San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 2004. (Retrieved August 27, 2010.)
  25. 1 2 3 4 5 Seligman, Katherine, "Ayelet, Unfiltered", San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2005. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  26. ↑ Abrams, David, "Minefield of motherhood", January Magazine, October 2003
  27. ↑ DC Public Library website
  28. ↑ "Books in brief: fiction", New York Times, September 28, 2003.
  29. ↑ Gaines, Luan, "Curled up with a good book"(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.)
  30. 1 2 Kaplan Sommer, Allison, "Ayelet Waldman on writing Jewish characters and raising daughters", The Sisterhood, August 5, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  31. 1 2 Salter Reynolds, Susan, "At the intersection of grief and destiny", Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2010. (Retrieved August 25, 2010.)
  32. 1 2 Nussbaum, Emily, "Report from stroller central", New York Magazine, January 28, 2006.
  33. ↑ Cain, Chelsea. "Atom bomb of desire", New York Times, February 12, 2006. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  34. ↑ Edwards, Kim, "Lost and found", Washington Post, February 12, 2006. (Retrieved August 25, 2010.)
  35. ↑ Andriani, Lynn, "Love of her life comes with a 5-year-old boy ", February 19, 2006
  36. ↑ Bukowsky, Eleanor, "Love and other impossible pursuits", Mostly fiction book reviews, January 29, 2006. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  37. ↑ Kachka, Boris "Baggage check", New York Magazine, January 8, 2006. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  38. ↑ "The Ayelet Waldman interview: slightly less than twenty questions", Zukley, January 6, 2006.(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.)
  39. ↑ "Toronto to premiere Portman's 'Love'", Variety, August 13, 2009. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  40. ↑ Jacobs, Alexandra. "A Wedding and a Funeral", New York Times, July 30, 2010. Retrieved on 2010-08-20
  41. ↑ Charles, Ron, "Ayelet Waldman's 'Red Hook Road'", The Washington Post, July 21, 2010
  42. ↑ Bushell, Agnes, "A tale of two families" Archived February 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine., DownEast.com, July 2010
  43. ↑ Silverstein, Clara, "Coping: how tragedy forced two families to carry on", Pittsburgh Post Gazette, July 1, 2010. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  44. 1 2 "Bad Mother's day", May 9, 2009. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  45. 1 2 Rufus, Anneli, "Truth or dare: Ayelet Waldman makes love – and enemies", East Bay Express. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  46. 1 2 "Too much at stake to be nice", New York Times, March 12, 2010]. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  47. 1 2 Waldman, Ayelet, "Truly, Madly, Deeply", New York Times, March 27, 2005. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  48. ↑ "Sexy witch or cereal box: which is your teen girl", NPR, March 20, 2009. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  49. ↑ "Homework hell", Salon.com, October 22, 2005. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  50. ↑ "I'm madly jealous of my husband's other woman, his MOTHER", Mail Online, June 18, 2009. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  51. ↑ "Tis the season to obsess about food", Salon.com, December 12, 2005. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  52. ↑ "Waking up middle aged" Archived December 5, 2010, at the Wayback Machine., Harper's Bazaar. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  53. ↑ "I was conned by JT Leroy" Archived April 11, 2010, at the Wayback Machine., Salon.com, January 11, 2006. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  54. ↑ "Madonna's Triptych ", Tablet, September 29, 2004. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  55. ↑ "Their misspent youth" Archived February 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine., Salon.com, November 14, 2005. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  56. ↑ Roberts, Alison, "Ambivalent about motherhood", Chicago Tribune, February 15, 2006
  57. ↑ Discussed in Luscombe, Belinda, "Ayelet Waldman: Bad Mother", Time, May 8, 2009. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  58. 1 2 3 Wollan, Malia, "Parents burning to write it all down", New York Times, October 16, 2009. Retrieved August 27, 2010.
  59. ↑ Baneerjee, Bidisha, "Bible thumped", Slate, March 29, 2005
  60. ↑ Memmot, Carol, "Ayelet Waldman: Precipitating the mother of all uproars", United States Today, May 1, 2009. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  61. ↑ Oprah.com
  62. ↑ "Ayelet Waldman: Precipitating the mother of all uproars", United States Today, April 29, 2009. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  63. ↑ "Profile – Ayelet Waldman, Bad Mother", damomma.com, May 24, 2010.(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.)
  64. ↑ Waldman, Ayelet, "Why it can be good to be a bad mother in a world where modern parenting has become hideously competitive", UK Daily Mail, May 28, 2009. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  65. ↑ Huhes, Sarah, "Is this woman a bad mother, or just honest?", The Independent, May 26, 2009
  66. ↑ Solod Warren, Lisa, "Who's your (bad) mother? Ayelet Waldman takes on the art of mothering", The Huffington Post, May 6, 2009. (Retrieved August 25, 2010.)
  67. ↑ Harrison, Pat, "Book review: 'Bad mother'" Archived July 18, 2011, at the Wayback Machine., Oregon Live.com, May 8, 2009. (Retrieved August 25, 2010.)
  68. ↑ Dominus, Susan. "I love you more", New York Times, May 7, 2000. Retrieved on 2010-08-20
  69. ↑ "Ayelet Waldman's old "Bad Mother" blog on blogspot (2004–2005)". (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  70. ↑ Hochman, David, " Mommy (and me)", New York Time, January 30, 2005. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  71. 1 2 Cantor, Danielle, "Successful women: Ayelet Waldman", Jewish Woman, Fall 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  72. ↑ Bad Mother.(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.)
  73. 1 2 "Ayelet Waldman's blog relating to the 2008 Presidential Election at New York Magazine (2008)". (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  74. ↑ "Blog on Ayelet Waldman's website (2008–2009)". (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  75. ↑ Buchwald, Laura. "A Conversation with Michael Chabon", Boldtype, RandomHouse.com, 2000. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  76. ↑ "Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman on parenting with a mental illness" Archived September 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine., The Take Away, June 21, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  77. ↑ "An Interview with Ayelet Waldman", Namely Marly. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  78. ↑ "Donate Barack Obama". (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)
  79. ↑ Brostoff, Marissa, "Chabon and Waldman: The Couple That Kvells Together", Forward.com, September 4, 2008. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)

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